Understanding toys.

Before the baby we all read up and stock up on the best toys to be found.  We also swarm to garage sales and hit up friends who are done having kids to build our toy stashes.  Then the baby arrives and we look at this little slug of a thing, and then at the toys, and then at the slug, then the toys, the slug, the toys - why did we buy all these toys?  No worries, as parents of newborns we entertain ourselves during tummy time (the baby's not ours) by fittings shapes in holes, assembling wooden puzzles, and setting off every toy in the room that plays a song or sound of some kind to see if we can time them just right and hit a rhythm. Then the baby starts rolling over/sitting up/crawling and now he or she is suddenly very aware of the toys in the room.  Wow, this is it, the moment we've been waiting for!  Now all the time, effort, and money will be worth something!  And with fascination you watch, day in and day out, as the baby moves from one toy to another, grabbing it up, sticking it in his or her mouth, taking a bite or a lick, then throwing it aside to move on to the next unsuspecting toy.  Well, okay.  It's not what we'd had in mind when we spent all those hours researching every company's promise for development stimulation, but at least they're being used, right?  At least they're being used.

The good news is, there is yet another step in toy usage, and Calvin reached that step over the past couple of months.  He's been removing the rings from the peg for months now, in order to put them in his mouth of course, but when he finally put a ring back on the peg, now that was exciting!  And even that was nothing in comparison to the moment that he stopped filling the hollow circle with drool and started fitting it into the circle indentation on his learning home - wow, we're really making headway now!  But today takes the cake, because today he moved from understanding what hole to put the circle in, to knowing where to put the star.  The moment seemed to be just as big for Calvin as it was for his parents, he is even learning to clap (only for himself, of course).  And so, today we celebrate the validation of toy ownership.