Monday, July 16, 2007

The Secret Lives of Caroline's Toys

The badge to the left of all of these posts is a link to a site called Flickr, a photo storage and sharing site. I am very new to Flickr, but I like it a lot and have created an account and played around with it some. I think I will start a collection of Caroline's toy pictures--they just crack me up, the dressed-up duck in an earlier post being one example.

Perhaps not everyone will find things like this as amusing as I do, but to me they are just so very . . . Caroline. She leaves little traces of herself wherever she goes. When she was first beginning to walk and we were up at my parents' house in NC, one of my sisters was giving her Cheerios (I think it was) to snack on and Caroline, true to form, was not sitting still for a minute as she ate. The family later found out---as my dad was vacuuming around the fireplace--that she had been hiding Cheerios away behind one of the decorations at the foot of the mantle. It was kind of an eat-one-and-save-one-for-later arrangement.

You don't always think that much is going on in a wee one's little pea brain until you discover a clue--like hidden Cheerios--and realize that they have a real purpose in their busyness. We thought Caroline was just pittering around while snacking. In reality, she must have been hoping to make that snack last longer, or possibly even to come back to the stash on her next visit.

That tidbit leads me, in a roundabout way, to the toy pictures I've decided to start taking. I guess, in a similar way, the traces she leaves behind after play are clues as well--into what's going on in her imaginary world. I wish I had been taking pictures from the very beginning, but oh well. Yesterday I snapped these.

This is her purple bear riding her little kitty like it's a horse.

Here, dog, horse and giraffe are watching the train go by.

To her it probably makes perfect sense for a zebra to drive a schoolbus.

This one is my favorite. The little bunny has a perch, the donkey is
looking out the window and the cow is . . . taking a nap?

These are her princess figures in my old Fisher Price Little People house.
It fascinates me that she often turns dolls and figurines away from her
and towards windows, Jasmine and Mulan being the exceptions here.
Did Mulan fall? Was she pushed? I may never know but I like wondering.).

That will be all for now, but I'm sure that if I went and looked there would be plenty more play clues lying about. I love peeking into her happy world. xoxoxo

3 comments:

  1. This is a great idea! I love these.

    I think I had that same fisher price house when I was little.
    shanda

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  2. oh my gosh. Your blog is so clever! This one made me laugh out loud quite a bit!

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  3. I sure do enjoy reading what is going on. It is such a wonderful idea. I can't wait to see you all next week.

    Love
    mom c

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