Mama-Come-Lately

Since we’re raising a child in the digital age, and since he already knows how to navigate an iPad (don’t judge me on that one until you read my upcoming post on tech in our house), we like to make sure he has plenty of low-tech stuff to play with. Stuff he can be creative with. Blocks, vehicles, stuffed animals, yadda-yadda. But he didn’t have any play food, which a recent Parents magazine article singled out as a great toy for fostering creativity.

Here let me pause to say that yes, I do read Parents. Rather, I skim it and shake my head at the articles about insanely elaborate decorations for a one-year-old’s birthday party. And pieces about using navy blue eyeliner to make yourself look more awake. But they do run useful pieces like the aforementioned one on raising creative kids.

So off I trotted to Toys R Us. Once I located the play food (with the help of a sales gal — it was my first time there and my head couldn’t handle the onslaught of fluorescent lights and bright colors and brand names), I picked out something that looked fun and took it home.

The Boo loved the tiny frying pan and spatula, but he nearly bit through the sausage. The plastic was so thin I could dent it without much effort, which did not bode well for its life with a toddler who’s currently growing molars. So the set went back to the store and I came home empty-handed because they didn’t have anything that looked sturdier. Or maybe they did and I just couldn’t find it because holy cow, the number of things in tightly packed aisles. That place mussed my aura worse than the grocery store, know what I’m saying? Too many choices. Why do we need that many kinds of cereal? Or tiny Dyson vacuums? Yeah, they make tiny Dysons. Chew on that one for a bit, let me know how it sits with you because it gives me shpilkas in my genecktazoink.

Okay, I’m back now.

At home, I dug out the magazine that had spawned the quest and noted the brand they recommended: Learning Resources. And that, friends, is what I bought. It ain’t the cheapest, but the pieces are very sturdy and shockingly pretty and they offer a bunch of different fun sets.

I chose one with a mix of fruits and veggies and minimal junk food (because my kid already loves potato chips, thank you Daddy!) that came with a couple of baskets (because our space is small and I am a Virgo). My only beef with the set is that the baskets aren’t quite big enough to fit all the food in at once, but the Boo doesn’t care about that. He happily dumps them out and refills them over and over. He also adores making sandwiches and offering me bites of cookie.

And it’s not hard to pretend it’s a good cookie, either: