Toys are always a favorite the first day they were given. But how do some toys stand up to the test of time? Lily and Emmy received some very cool gifts over the holidays, and I wanted to see which ones were still used, and which ones have been abandoned, now that January is coming to an end.
- Lily’s aunt gave her a pack of colored pencils. These have been used over and over again, and Lily is still making and coloring pictures with them almost every day. We try to keep them away from Emmy so she doesn’t poke her eye out, but Lily’s not too good at that. Last November we painted our kitchen walls white. That was a brilliant decision for parents of two small children…a nice, blank canvas that needs some color. Good thing I have a Magic Eraser on hand. This gift is definitely a hit.
- Emmy and Lily’s uncle gave them this eggloo from IKEA. That’s right, it’s not an igloo, or even a tent. It’s an eggloo. The girls go in and out, but have yet to actually play or read in it. I think I may spend more time in the igloo, ahem, I mean eggloo, than they do! When they opened this gift, I imagined hours of imaginative play and quiet reading time, but that has yet to materialize. This gift is a hit with me, and I’m going to work on getting the girls to use it more.
- Lily received a Build A Bear kit that was a trial for me, but Lily loved it. She now sleeps with the finished bear, “Mary.”
- The girls loved this Little People castle on Christmas Day. One of the sound buttons didn’t work, so I was tempted to return it. The dance and twirl function works really well: the music is cute and the prince and princess twirl like they’re dancing together. Lily twirls them so hard that they fly across the room. Yes, she’s a gentle child. The girls play with it on and off, but it was a huge hit when we had a neighbor over for a play date!
- Lily received this “Puppy Grows and Knows My Name” from Fisher Price for her birthday. It comes with a disc so you can program your child’s name into it, and you can also name the dog. Lily had a fever yesterday, and crawled into bed with Zoe. She got to stay home from church with Daddy. Lily looks really “sick” in this picture, doesn’t she? If I hadn’t taken her temperature myself, I would think she was pulling a Ferris Bueller. Zoe is a favorite toy of both Lily and Emmy. Fortunately Lily shares, most of the time.
- Since Emmy loves Zoe so much, I bought her this brown dog. It was so cute in the store; I had to have it! The demo button is in the ear, but when you bring it home, you deactivate the ear and are supposed to pat its head. It is really hard to get this dog to do anything, as you can see in the video. (The video is a little wobbly; Emmy was pulling on my arm.) You practically have to pop its eyes out before it will do anything. This dog, even though it is so cute, doesn’t get much attention from either one of the girls. A miss.
Lily is an abstract artist. As you can see from her artwork, she doesn’t create anything recognizable. The teacher in me wonders if I should worry about her fine motor skills; the parent in me rejoices that she is using her own creativity and imagination without preconceived notions of what things should look like. No sticks with green balls on top for trees, or boxes with triangles for houses. Just pure, happy, joyful art. One of her favorite birthday presents was from her aunt, which included a sketch book, round stickers, metallic contact paper to cut into “stickers,” and paint. She hasn’t even gotten to the paint yet! She has spent hours making pictures for all her classmates, which impresses me in two different ways: 1) She is showing me that she may not be diagnosed with ADHD in the near future, and 2) she cares for other kids. There was a birthday party for one of her classmates this weekend, and so we bought him a present. She wanted to be sure the other kids did not feel left out, so she made all of them a picture, like the one below.
One of the reasons she may be feeling so inspired is that last weekend we went to the 
I really liked the work of one of Heather’s friends,