My daughter has a strange list of 'favorite things'.
When I say favorite things, I mean the items she likes so much, she stashes them in her bed. Parents, you know what I'm talking about. It's as if all of us come into this world and have some type of hoarding gene.
My daughter has amassed a collection of odds and ends that I've just been stuffing into small easily to open boxes for my daughter to play with when I need a few minutes to start the rice or marinate the meat. That sounds kinky. Everything and anything from broken measuring tape (retraction doesn't work) and slinkies that are uncoiled to post it love notes my husband and I used to send to each other and odd man out toys that survived the wrath of a puppy live in these boxes. TG finds these items and dumps them on the floor. As I clean up, if they don't belong to a toy or set and it's harmless, I stick 'em in a box. It fascinates TG. She loves opening up the boxes to find out what's inside.
It also is a great way to see her imagination blossom. She'll take the broken measuring tape doodad and pretend it's a harmonica or a 'freebie' notepad and binder I received and make it into her wallet notebook and stick old metrocards and stuff in it.
Anyway, items to date I can recall that I've found in her bed include:
A container of bunny crackers
A flashlight
A broken flashlight she uses as a microphone
A mini head flashlight
A tiny light used for illuminating table ornaments
Goodnight Gorilla
Her doll
Her polar bear doll (chilly bear) By the way, chilly bear somehow has been deemed 'Mommy's lovey'. Every night she gently places chilly bear on the opposite shoulder from her and places my arm around him.
A snowglobe which she gingerly carries around as I told her she needs to be gentle and take good care of it.
A purple ring
A topaz ring
Goodnight Moon
A book on Opposites
Several Sandra Boynton books
Guess How Much I Love You
DH's Measuring Tape
First, yes all of this stuff is in her bed in some shape or form. Most of it is wedged against the mattress and the wall. Some of it resides above her pillow in this little area we place diapers and wipes for overnight changes.
Today I need to share my observations on the measuring tape. One, it's one of the more dangerous items as it's an actual metal retractable measuring tape. Two, it hit me this evening as I saw her playing with it that when I was a kid, I loved my dad's measuring tape. I remembering sitting on the pea green carpeting of my parent's room and pulling up the tape gingerly and slowly pushing it back in to close it. I was never a snap back type of person. Well that is exactly what I saw my daughter doing tonight. She sat there and gingerly pulled the tape up and then gently guided it back down.
The appeal is obvious but it's also because Mary Poppins has a measuring tape.
We try to adhere to the recommendations of limited media for her. We introduced her to MP recently though because she loves music and I have super fond memories of paying a quarter to see MP at my grammar school. (I'm not that old, it was one of those movie festivals at my parochial school. Back then, you were limited to what was deemed religiously, morally and kid friendly.)
Anyway, she loves the scene where Mary Poppins measures the children and she will re-enact this scene with me and DH whenever she sees the measuring tape.
I'm still weary of the measuring tape and I need to find one that is cloth and retractable to ease my mind. Prior to seeing the movie, my mom gave her a retractable cloth one that looked like a bear. (That's the one I described in the box.) It broke. Then I gave her my non-retractable measuring tape and she said and I quote, "No, That's not it."
So now I have to hunt for an allusive cloth retractable measuring tape. Not something most moms would search for during the holiday season but that may help my odds of finding one.
