For almost three months I kept a plastic hanger in my car on passenger side on the floor. It was one that came with a garment that some clerk failed to take out when she rang me up and I failed to notice until I got it home. It had one of those little plastic size indicator things that spun around. It saved my sanity in the car on countless occasions. When Josh would get fussy and start crying, I would reach over, grab the hanger and hand it back to him. Nine times out of ten, it's spinning knob and bangability (trust me, this word exists for toddlers as an indication of what sort of sounds it can generate when banged on a surface) would allow me to continue my commute in peace. It broke this week and I'm on the lookout for a replacement "whatever" toy.
What is a "whatever" toy? This is an item, usually not a toy in the manufactured sense, that for whatever reason, draws a toddler's attention like a moth to a flame. An item that your child will cling to, pack around and try to take a nap with and you just shake your head, mutter "whatever" and just let them have it. For Josh, he has two other "whatever" toys in the car: a straw and an unused sunshade. In the house it can be a variety of objects, but his favorites right now are shoes, rocks and pieces of wood. Not just sticks, mind you, but actual hunks of wood. Usually this happens at the grandparents' house (or the land of a thousand rocks and the great gravel pile of happiness) where Josh would happily spend all his time outside hunched over picking up rock after rock after rock.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to buy toys for my child. Spoiled as he is, he already gets gifts from the family and I do appreciate those toys. Since last Christmas we've bought Josh three stuffed soft toys, a set of 5 little Tonka cars and a magnetic Noah's Ark tin for quiet time in church. The stuffed toys and the cars where bought as new distraction toys for long car trips or airplane rides. That's all. I don't really know what other parents spend on toys in a typical year for their kiddos, but that doesn't seem like much. Yet why should I go out and spend our limited income when my son is just as happy (or in some cases, happier) to play with a rock? I think those "whatever" toys are good for the imagination too, though I'm not sure what he's imagining when he's hauling around one of David's old shoes.
2 comments:
So true! A good cardboard box gets a lot of miles - and we're all about the sticks and stones around here, too. ;)
Are you a writer in another life? That was so well put with the cutest twists and turns on it that I thought I was reading a professionals. You're great.
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