My Kids’ Favorite Things

While I’m parenting at a sub-par level.

The mornings are long and seemingly without end but then lunch & naps start around 11 so it means my nap is nigh at hand too! During these mornings, my children have experienced a few of their new favorite things while I lay around with them, occasionally running after the toddler who*still* wants to throw things into the toilet.

1. Baseball cards.

SuperBoy will sit with a bundle for over an hours, carefully examining who he has, what positions they play, their stats, and then work out a paper-version of fantasy baseball, setting them all around the kitchen floor. We get the cheapies one and a time from Target for good behavior, but we have about 100,958 so really he’ll play with any of them.

2. Sticker books.

SweetPea really destroys these by ripping out all the stickers at once and then putting them anywhere but where they belong in the book but I’m all lalalalal looks like you’re having fun! about it. This Curious George one was a hit.

3. Dollhouses.

We have three. Yes. Three. One is this mansion one that my dearly deceased Godmother left to me. It’s gargantuan. The second is one my dad built in the 70’s for his (then) two little girls (and is the tot’s now). The third is one recently acquired because someone survived swim lessons for a year and was usually pretty cooperative (I bought myself a few boxes of these to celebrate my survival). This third one has been hours of joy while pilfering furniture from the other two houses.

4. Audio stories.

You know I’m always talking up Jim Weiss’ audio stories. This new favorite for her is a new favorite for the boys, too. The older kids listen to the Shakespeare one or the Sherlock Holmes one while I put the tot down for his nap. We’re fielding lots of why did everyone die questions but I figure it’s good literary formation. We start first thing in the morning and then they get to negotiate who picks which one next. I think we have about two dozen of his stories!!

5. Janod story box toys.

BabyLoves eats these up. Literally, he likes gnawing on the wood, but more importantly, we have these three sets FIRE, WILD WEST, and FARM. The sets have so many fun parts and people in them and horses to ride and zoomers to zoom–it’s a party for him and I’m all yes! tell me again!

6. Reading.

I’ve been reading so many fun books aloud lately, I should make a separate post! It’s mostly all I can do with the kids so we’re really getting into a whole slough of them.

SuperBoy is really into the Civil War and it’s prompting great questions about race and equality. I can’t find a link for the book we’ve loved, but this activity book looks really good. It goes well with the Jim Weiss story about women in the Civil War which we have most of memorized.

SweetPea loves Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, and not just at bedtime (used version here for $0.40). They’re real moral stories from the 70’s left over from our childhood and yes, lots of kids cry and die in them, but everyone loves Jesus so I guess it works out?

Anything with yellow dig digs or black dog dogs (who doesn’t love Carl??) has captivated BabyLoves as my brother is building a house and he AND my sister purchased black dogs this spring.

7. Hide & go to seek.

Yes, they call it that instead of “hide and go seek” but it’s pretty cute so I’m not bursting their bubble yet. They hide for as long as they can before they can’t stand that I haven’t found them anymore (pro-tip: I’m also hiding, where I was, under the blanket, on the floor) and then they reveal themselves. It is great gang-up-on-mama-teamwork.

What’s saving your summer so far?