3 Things Your Child Does Need
Love and shelter and food and attention are assumed. I'm talking about the stuff. OMG the stuff!
I’ll just get right to it here:
Buy Socks. Buy lots of socks. Buy more socks than you will think you will ever need. You will need socks. Socks get thrown around here like leaves in the wind and it’s rare that the new pair you bought just last week will make it through the second week and be worn twice.
I don’t know where the socks go but I do know that despite all the pleas to pick up socks they will be ignored. The dog will see an opportunity in the making and steal just one sock and eat it. Then you’re left with just one sock.
You have choices: You do like we do and put the one sock in a “sock bucket” and hope that one day that missing sock the dog ate will somehow miraculously appear again. (It might, but it will be in the back yard, and after all that the poor sock has been through you don’t want it)
Or you can take the one sock that’s left and toss it in the hamper hoping that it will clone itself like a sheep while in the washing machine and come out of the dryer as a pair.
All of these options are useless. The only option that might make sense is the single sock approach. This is where you take a single sock and place it on the left foot of the child. You then do the same with the right foot. This gets you a pair of socks. It’s not a matching pair but it’s a pair of socks on little feet.
Up next: Crayons and Paper.
Same as the socks, get lots of both - especially the crayons. Because just like the socks there’s a good chance a lot of the crayons will go through the dog as well (how our dog is still alive is one of the seventh wonders, I swear)
The quality of crayons don’t matter. You can get cheap crayons because they’re going to break anyway. You don’t need the twistables or other such fancy crayon. You need crayons.
For the most part, these crayons don’t need to be any particular color. An assortment is fine because at least so far I have never had her ask specifically for “blue blueberry blossom” or whatever wild names. A six pack of the primary colors will do but I suggest going with a larger selection because the dog currently has a six crayon a day habit so the primary colors won’t be around for long.
Let the grandparents buy the crayons. Crayons are available everywhere so they’re not hard to get as opposed to say the special edition furby that’s only available on black Friday at the Wal-Mart 100 miles away. Grandparents like to buy stuff they can recognize and remember when they were young - They have no idea what a furby is so take it easy on them and let them buy the practical stuff.
When it comes to paper, just buy Plain white paper.
You don’t need fancy craft paper. Buy the cheapest crap you can get and hide your good printer paper. White goes well with everything - just not after labor day.
If you leave the child alone in a room with a fresh box of crayons and some paper, I tell you magical things will happen:
You don’t have to spend a lot and get the latest and greatest toy. They don’t need a PS5 at this age. The stuff that gets the most use here are the little toys. These small toys are sprinkled through the house like the dust bunnies. I count on my kitchen table right now: a few magic markers, a my little pony action figures and some stickers from the dollar store and a minions pez dispenser.
Little hands like little things and they don’t want over complicated. (Neither do you) . The best part about these little things is that after while you can um, make them disappear when nobody’s looking.
For the price of a happy meal, you too can have a bunch of cheap plastic toys on your kitchen table too.
We Have That at Home
Today’s WHTAH are/is squishmallows.
I think she made it until 3 years old before she was gifted one for her birthday and at the time, I did not know what they were. Fast forward a few years and we’re at a dozen of these things, or more.
Currently we play softball (they are soft) with them. This is not the safest game as it involves her standing on her bed while I toss squishmallows at her. She loves it though and it’s currently our nighttime routine.
These squishmallows are pretty popular and she’s named every one of them - my favorite is donut. There’s cats and foxes and well…some character that looks like a donut.
We have a lot of squishmallows here. So many that there’s a stop on any new squishmallows entering the house as we are running out of room in her bedroom for any more.
But, that doesn’t mean you can’t have one of your very own squishmallows. They start at about $12 each, or the six mini ones you see above are priced at about six for a dollar. That’s a bargain!