Quack. Quack Quack.
Favorite toys come and go. I remember when Abbie thought Weebles were the coolest thing ever invented. She’d throw it, watch it slide, and then roll back to standing. She’d do that for the equivalent of hours in baby time* giggling the entire time. After the initial thrill wore off, the Weebles found their way to the bottom of the toy bin only emerging when Abbie needed something to spread across the living room floor while I’m trying to vacuum.
Her latest toy du jour is a duck pond, and this one may stick around for a while, or at least the better part of a week. We bought the duck pond at a steep discount in the days after Christmas as the stores cleared out all of their unwanted holiday merchandise to make room for soon-to-be unwanted Valentine’s Day merchandise. We meant it to be a birthday present, but she seemed developmentally ready for it, and it was just taking up space on the shelf. Plus, we needed more evidence to prove my theory that we should never buy gifts more than a couple weeks before the event.
The duck pond is a preschool game that we’ve converted into a toddler toy. It has 12 ducks that “swim” around the pond thanks to a battery-operated conveyer. The pond quacks as it spins, thus fulfilling the federal regulation that all toys must make noise, preferably an annoying one.
Each duck has one of four colored shapes on its bottom. The intended object of the game is to lift a duck to check if it matches your selected shape. If it matches, set it in front of you; if it doesn’t match, put it back on the pond. The first one to collect all three ducks with the correct shape makes the other child cry. When played correctly, it teaches turn-taking, shape-matching, and searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.
Abbie’s primary object of the game is to use it as background noise. She turns it on, maybe strews a couple ducks across the floor, walks away, and screams when I turn it off. She finds other ways to enjoy it as well. She pulls ducks off, and puts them back on. She experiments to determine which other toys will “swim” around the pond.** She uses the quacking to bait her brothers into walking near enough to investigate, and then shoves them onto the floor. In this way she learns about the scientific process, self-defense, and, of course, searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.
Because it has 12 ducks to spread across the floor like slightly rounded blocks, I put it away when she’s not playing with it to keep everything in one place besides the bottom of my feet. I have to store it in our bedroom because that’s the only place in the house where she can’t see it. If she sees it beyond her reach when I don’t want to get it down for her, she will scream in agony for minutes until she composes herself, grabs a chair, and drags it to the shelf to retrieve the thing on her own. When it’s hidden behind a door, she only screams in agony during the dozen or so times a day that she sneaks into our room when I run in to grab something.
At least that was my hope. In reality, she also screams about a dozen times a day while pounding on our bedroom door in hopes that I’ll retrieve her duck pond. She’s so fond of it that she’s willing to utter syllables to ask for it by name, “uht ohnnnn.” So I break down, get it out for her, and regret my decision every time I try to vacuum over 12 ducks and she’s in another room while it quacks away. She’ll probably forget about it by next week.
* That’s about five minutes in real time.
** So far, she’s had the best results with a toy pig.
Her latest toy du jour is a duck pond, and this one may stick around for a while, or at least the better part of a week. We bought the duck pond at a steep discount in the days after Christmas as the stores cleared out all of their unwanted holiday merchandise to make room for soon-to-be unwanted Valentine’s Day merchandise. We meant it to be a birthday present, but she seemed developmentally ready for it, and it was just taking up space on the shelf. Plus, we needed more evidence to prove my theory that we should never buy gifts more than a couple weeks before the event.
The duck pond is a preschool game that we’ve converted into a toddler toy. It has 12 ducks that “swim” around the pond thanks to a battery-operated conveyer. The pond quacks as it spins, thus fulfilling the federal regulation that all toys must make noise, preferably an annoying one.
Each duck has one of four colored shapes on its bottom. The intended object of the game is to lift a duck to check if it matches your selected shape. If it matches, set it in front of you; if it doesn’t match, put it back on the pond. The first one to collect all three ducks with the correct shape makes the other child cry. When played correctly, it teaches turn-taking, shape-matching, and searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.
Abbie’s primary object of the game is to use it as background noise. She turns it on, maybe strews a couple ducks across the floor, walks away, and screams when I turn it off. She finds other ways to enjoy it as well. She pulls ducks off, and puts them back on. She experiments to determine which other toys will “swim” around the pond.** She uses the quacking to bait her brothers into walking near enough to investigate, and then shoves them onto the floor. In this way she learns about the scientific process, self-defense, and, of course, searching-for-the-missing-piece skills.
Because it has 12 ducks to spread across the floor like slightly rounded blocks, I put it away when she’s not playing with it to keep everything in one place besides the bottom of my feet. I have to store it in our bedroom because that’s the only place in the house where she can’t see it. If she sees it beyond her reach when I don’t want to get it down for her, she will scream in agony for minutes until she composes herself, grabs a chair, and drags it to the shelf to retrieve the thing on her own. When it’s hidden behind a door, she only screams in agony during the dozen or so times a day that she sneaks into our room when I run in to grab something.
At least that was my hope. In reality, she also screams about a dozen times a day while pounding on our bedroom door in hopes that I’ll retrieve her duck pond. She’s so fond of it that she’s willing to utter syllables to ask for it by name, “uht ohnnnn.” So I break down, get it out for her, and regret my decision every time I try to vacuum over 12 ducks and she’s in another room while it quacks away. She’ll probably forget about it by next week.
* That’s about five minutes in real time.
** So far, she’s had the best results with a toy pig.
posted by Matt at
11:48 PM
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