Today, my mom came over and Jerry and I decluttered the master bedroom, which has gotten piled up with junk since I’ve been home from the hospital. We put all of the piles of laundry away, tossed the dead flowers, took out the trash, put away his camping gear, etc.
Well, one of the things that left was the big box that the new TV came in. We had been using it as a table, since I needed somewhere to put things that I wasn’t using while convalescing. So he took the box outside, and then thought that maybe it would be a fun thing for the girls to play in — for a while — until they get tired of it or we get tired of it, whichever comes first.
So while Alice and I went on a quick trip to Publix (where I discovered that a 15-minute outing where I stand the whole time is about as much as I can manage right now — I was sweating by the end because I was in so much pain), Jerry made the box into a little house with doors and windows. Helen supervised.
She has been coloring it since about 6:30, and I finally had to wrench her away to go to bed. She was NOT happy. Maybe, just maybe, she’ll continue coloring it in the morning instead of waking us up? That would be terrific. Won’t happen, but a mommy can dream, right?
Hopefully they’ll get some enjoyment out of this big box in the next few days. I love how most of the time the best toys are really the simplest, because the imagination of the player takes over the rest. And that’s SO much more fun than having the activity totally defined by the toymaker — toys that do one thing, and one thing only. Those kinds of toys have always seemed like a waste of money to me.
I’d rather see my kid making up a new game every time she plays than watching a flashing beeping toy do the same thing over and over.