South Carolina Snow by way of California…

Aunt Mary sent a huge package from California.  There were plenty of cool toys within.  They were but a passing fancy stacked up next to the non-toy toy, of course.  I panicked at first when I saw the packing peanuts.  My first instinct was to not let one stray puff out of the box, close it up and hide it in the garage as quickly as possible, before anyone got any bright ideas.  Then Ben said “it’s like snow!”.  And I remembered that I, once upon a time, encouraged mess-making as a living back when I taught preschool.  So, I told my inner neat freak to take a hike, and we played in the snow!

In addition to the jumping, running, sliding, throwing, whooping and hollering, there were “snow plows”,

burying the baby,

and making snow angels, of course.

And then, we cleaned it all up.  Just like preschool.  La.

So, thanks Aunt Mary, for the California snow.

Oh, yes, and for the great toys, too. 

Baby loves her new bed.

Buttons

One of our very favorite non-toy toys is a bucket of buttons. Ben used to play with them back when he was two and Will was a baby. They were a special toy we could only play with when the baby was asleep. Now that Will is no longer a baby (he’s just a boy!), he gets to join in on the fun while Ella Rose is sleeping. These parameters of playtime, I’m certain, add to the great appeal of the Buttons. Yet, not only this. There are a bazillion things you can do with a bucket of buttons. Defining and sorting by attribute (ten dollar math teacher word=size, shape, color, etc.) is a natural interaction. There’s also stacking, counting, lining up, creating designs, building, trading, flipping, spinning, rolling, pretending, throwing ["no! no throwing!"], balancing, scooping, pouring, dumping, and then just running your hands through the pile, feeling the cool, smoothness of the shiny plastic as they filter through your fingers. Oh yeah. We love the Buttons.

This particular playtime was all about pretend. There were button muffins since they fit so perfectly into those little paint palettes, there was an oven (“Ben, it’s hot. Get your oven mitten.”), there were ‘knobs’ to turn, things to adjust, buttons to beep and a ‘timer’.

So, why, exactly, do we continue to buy toys?? Who, the hell, knows?