Fun toys and not-toys
Now I love Kate’s happy fun musical toys as much as anyone and have no problems having them in the house. But I do think it’s good to have a variety of different toys to explore, as well as just common household things. I really love watching Kate figure encounter new things and figure them out.
* What was my round metal trash bin is now a fun clangy rolling object. I can no longer put trash in it. Today I even caught her picking it up and carrying it as she walked, which was hilarious because it’s not light and it’s nearly as big as she is.
* She has a stacking toy that is made of wooden rings – they’re shaped like discs with a hole through the center. She couldn’t care less about stacking right now, but she loves those rings. She carries them around, bangs them together and against other objects, and her newest discovery is that when tossed on the hardwood floor they wobble and make funny noises. She has learned how to throw objects, which requires quite a bit of coordination to move her arm and let go with her hand all at the right time.
* Yesterday she discovered a small baby shoe that had laces – not something she ever wore, but it must have been in the shoe basket. She turned it over in her hands, she tossed it, she swung it around by the laces. She was fascinated for I think 30 minutes or more. Unfortunately when she was swinging it by the laces the shoe itself kept hitting her and she was crying and couldn’t figure out why it hurt.
* Laundry is a big thing with her right now. She learned how to pull open the bottom two drawers of her dresser and she just stands there and pulls every single thing out of it and tosses it on the ground.
* The laundry balls I have in the dryer caught her interest – they’re knobbly and make funny sounds as they roll. In fact, all balls interest her right now. Her current favorites are the Fisher Price Roll-a-rounds, as they’re just the right size for her little fists and she can send them rolling everywhere.
* Cables are unfortunately a huge attraction right now. I used to be able to distract her but for some reason this week she is insistent on getting to my power strip under my desk. Argh. I’ve blockaded the area off, but she’s trying to climb the blockade. I want to buy or build a little box or cabinet or something to put them all in.
* Books! She really loves her books, which thrills me. I never really “read” to her, but we always provided board books for her to play with. She still loves her “That’s Not My Dragon” (Usborne Books), which is a touchy feely book. Her other favorites are “Bright Baby Colors” (Priddy Books), which is very simple with bright bold pictures; Peek-a-Boo (Scholastic), which has pictures of babies faces and makes Kate giggle every time she flips through it; and the Sandra Boynton books (we have Snuggle Puppy; Moo Baa, La La La; Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs; and Opposites). She has recently figured out how to use her thumbs to separate pages that are stuck together (before she’d just turn whatever pages she could grab with her fingers). I love watching her manipulate the pages, study the pictures, touch the shapes. She never eats her books anymore, which amazes me.
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Because of the aforementioned fascination with the power strip I have not been able to sit at my computer for any length of time, even when she’s occupying herself. (Soon as she sees me in this corner she makes a beeline for me and goes for the cables.) And with the cold I couldn’t put her down to sleep. Arg. I don’t mind holding her while she sleeps, I just wish she’d let me watch TV or play on my phone at the same time… but no, those woke her up every time. Thankfully today she sounds much better, the second tooth popped out, and she actually just fell asleep on her bed easy as usual! Yay!! Her screaming at bedtime was a bit frazzling. She had been sleeping well in bed with me though, even while sick… I’m just glad we at least got some sleep at night.
LOL, we have had exactly the same issue with cables here for a while. We have tried to fake him out with some old unneeded ones but he seems to know the difference between them! We’ve dragged out the wooden blocks lately too and they’ve been a huge hit.
Hope the good sleep continues and the next set of teeth is a few weeks away to give you a break!