Category: toys

Posted in children, toys

Tired of toys, so they played with rocks

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Ramazan Ilyasov on Unsplash

We had our three granddaughters – ages 5, 3, and one – spend the night with us last Friday. We’ve got enough toys at our house to start a preschool, so I knew they would stay busy.

The most popular toys on our shelves have always been the popular toys. The first bin they open is the pretend food, especially the ice cream cones. In minutes, they are ready to take orders and serve up everything from burgers to eggs to ice cream sundaes. The ring of a small bell is followed by, “Order up!” over and over and over again.

They always pull out the toy power tools, too. They are all about do-it-yourself with a jigsaw, drill, reciprocating saw, and a flashlight. Everything in the house is subject to repair or remodeling.

We’ve got a basket of baby toys for the one-year-old, but everyone else likes to play with these, too. Rattles, plastic stacking donuts, and colorful shaky-things keep all ages busy.

On this occasion, they pulled out the dress-up dolls. I haven’t seen these for a while. Hundreds of clothing combinations magnetically stick to the figures. They also end up all over the floor.

But then the older girls discovered the rocks in the backyard garden. Naturally, they started a rock collection. Most of the 1-1/2 inch white river rocks look the same. But before you know it, their collect filled five small plastic baskets.

Doesn’t everyone collect rocks as a kid? Egg cartons make the perfect display cases. A creek just beyond the backyard was the best place to find rocks when I was growing up. My friends and I were fascinated with the mica and shale we could peel into thin slices. We brought home all shapes and sizes of quartz. Since we learned about the hardness scale in school, we felt quite knowledgable about rocks.

Collecting rocks is more difficult in Florida. The soil is sandy and almost rock-free. So we buy decorative rocks to put in our yards. And for kids to play with.

For some reason, kids love to play with rocks. When we are young we just have to throw them. We toss them up in the air, at each other, or, of course towards a window, until our parents step in to ruin our fun. The grandsons have been taking our landscape rocks and tying them to the end of sticks with some palmetto leaf strips to make hammers and axes. My backyard is littered with the little survivalists’ collection of tools and weapons.

Parents and grandparents spend a lot of money on toys. We could save a few bucks if we watched what the children really play with: a boxes, sticks, and rocks!

Posted in Life, toys

They once were lost, but now are found

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Did you look in the back bedroom closet? What about up in the attic?”

“I looked everywhere I can think of. Are you sure we didn’t give them away?”

We were cleaning and sorting the grandkids’ toys on the back porch. Somehow, a little bit of everything ends up everywhere. A plastic hotdog is in with the dinosaurs. A plastic dinosaur is in the Candyland box. Pokemon characters are tucked into every nook and cranny. Parts of the play ice cream cones are out and around.

When we got it all arranged – Legos, puzzles, games, dinosaurs, play food, Pokemon and Minecraft figures, cars, dolls, hundreds of Minnie’s Bow-tique pieces, and Magnatiles, I wondered, “Where are the Tinkertoys?”

We had purchased a used box of Tinkertoys on eBay a few years ago. While our childhood Tinkertoys were wooden, the contemporary edition is plastic. They are made of the kind of plastic that dogs love to chew on, so we try to keep them in the box and out of reach.

Tinkertoys are as much fun as ever. We’ve built long fishing poles, robots, swords and light sabres, telescopes, windmills, monsters, cars, shark cages, and rocket ships. The possibilities are endless. We don’t play with them every time the grandkids are with us, but often enough that we wouldn’t get rid of them.

I looked everywhere. Under beds. In closets. I went through all the bins in the attic twice. In drawers. In the back of the toy cabinet.

Nothing. They had somehow disappeared.

What did we do? We bought more. We found another set on eBay and in a few days we were back in business. All was right in our toy world again.

Before we left for a birthday party yesterday, I loaded a bunch of tables and folding chairs into the back of our car. As I grabbed the last two folding chairs from the back of the back bedroom closet, something caught my eye. I went back and saw them. “There they are!” The Tinkertoys. Right where we had left them at some time in the past.

For a guy who is good at finding lost things, this was a rush. And best of all, we have even more Tinkertoys than ever! (Guess who else likes to play with Tinkertoys?)

Posted in toys

The joy of nesting Santas

Posted on by William Douthwaite
  • Baby Santa!

About thirty years ago friends of ours gave us some nesting Santas for Christmas. Back then, we had no idea how many years of joy we would get from that simple gift!

The Santas are one of the first decorations out of the storage boxes each year. They are guaranteed to keep little ones (and oftentimes older ones) busy for hours. My grandson came back to them time and time again the afternoon we unpacked them.

The star of the show is the smallest one, the baby Santa. Who couldn’t love that little guy? When my children were growing up, a favorite game was hiding baby Santa. It’s pretty simple. One person hides the baby Santa on the Christmas tree while everyone else has their eyes closed. The first one to find him gets to hide him for the next round. On a Christmas tree filled with lights and ornaments, a 2-inch Santa can be surprisingly hard to find. Wrapped in greenery, balanced behind ornaments or nestled close to the trunk, baby Santa has quite a range of hiding places.

The grandchildren are just about old enough to play this game. Next year for sure. For now, it’s so much fun to watch them laugh as they discover Santa after Santa after Santa in this simple entertaining toy.