Creative Play

My children have LOTS of toys. In fact, we have them coming out our ears! You know that old saying that with each child your toys increase exponentially? I believe it! We've been trying to simplify lately, but we have a LONG way to go. We still have WAY too many toys. But I just love it when my kids find creative ways to play. Here's the baby, or Bandit, as we should call her with a couple of pairs of her big siblings' goggles. And yes, when I caught her in the act, she exclaimed proudly, "Goggles!" Yesterday I saw her running out of the bathroom with a fancy black shoe in each hand (her sisters were taking a shower). She was frantically trying to find a place to hide her booty and settled on the bookshelf in our bedroom. When she realized the shelf was too full, she started methodically taking the books out one by one to make room to hide her prize. OK, so maybe this isn't the kind of creative play I should encourage. It's pretty cute when they're one, though.



You might remember that we said bye-bye to Barbie a couple of months ago. Here you see a happy little effect of that. The girls have resorted to making their own paper dolls! You can see which one Twinkle Toes made, can't you? The others were created by the Measle. She named them all with such unusual names, too. I hope I don't have granddaughters named Foon and Qwilla someday.

Meanwhile, while I was reading this morning Mr. Monk was working a puzzle of the United States. For a few days now we've been having a giant puzzle party at our house. Our organization project has reminded the kids how much they enjoy working puzzles. They've been tucked away out of sight in their drawers for so long we had forgotten about them! Anyway, so the kids have been working this states puzzle and quizzing their dad and me on the capitals. (I'm so glad I'll re-learn them next year with the kids when we study American history and geography!) So, this morning I'm reading and all of a sudden Monk inserts matter-of-factly, "We live in a desert." He's heard his dad complaining about our dearth of trees for years, but it took staring at a puzzle for him to get it. (I prefer to think of our home as being on the great plains, not in a desert, but I know some think differently.)