Below are toys for the Pre-K through elementary school age range. Toys that have stood the test of time in our house - meaning they still get used a great deal, and they still work.

I will start with Baby Alive. This is another of those toys the kids like way more than I do. We actually have an older model that seems to have been discontinued, ours doesn’t say anything about pottying, it just dirties her diaper. You should know that the baby alive diapers are very expensive, more than a dollar each. And they aren’t made well. So I buy a case of 96 Pampers newborn diapers at Christmas and then again during the summer and they know they have to make those diapers last. How ironic sad that the real diapers are cheaper than the pretend diapers. I also look for deals on the food, and when a good sale I buy a whole bunch at a time. I found some on sale online a while back and bought 80 packets at about half of their regular cost. I’ve looked around for food recipes, but I’m afraid if I use something that is actually food that it will rot in the doll, so for now we’re buying the special food since it does not seem to cause problems. We’ve had this doll for years and she still gets regular use. We thought she was broken once, turned out she just needed new batteries. The batteries last a surprisingly long time, I think we’ve replaced them two or three times in the past three or four years.

I’ll jump to technology for a minute. First the Leapster LMax. The difference in the regular Leapster and the LMax is that you can hook the LMax up to the TV and play if you want. I like being able to see what is being done occasionally, and if they hook up to the TV and play, you can watch them play. It’s hard to do that when they are playing the unit by themselves. I see lots of kids using these with headphones, but GG does not use headphones. Well, she did on the plane to and from China, but that’s it. I’m not going to point to all of the cartridges, it’s almost embarrassing how many we have. We’ve given them at Christmas and birthdays and family days and, well, there are a lot. We have considered the new Leapster Didj for GG, I love that you can put the spelling words into it, but GG still uses the Leapster a good bit so as of now we haven’t made the, er, leap. If anyone has the Didj and wants to comment on it, that would be great. I’ve also pointed to GG’s MP3 player, I talked about it here. And the Write and Learn letter pad - TT loves that thing. I can’t blame her, even I have spent time drawing the shapes and watching them dance. More time than I’d like to admit to, actually. You’ll note that I’m not pointing to the Vtech V.Motion System, and that is because it really hasn’t gotten that much use.

 
Ah, building toys. These are the toys of our childhood: TinkerToys, Lincoln Logs, Legos, Erector Sets. I don’t really need to say anything about them, do I?

Who doesn’t love Mr. Potato Head? We actually have the Potato Head family, which had Mr and Mrs and Junior… but I guess it is now discontinued and selling for an exorbitant price. So I’ve pointed to the basic Mr Potato Head, but I would recommend the deluxe Mr and Mrs if you can find them at a decent price somewhere. Having a ton of options is part of the fun. Matching Mrs. Potato Head’s hat and purse and shoes and earrings, or making them clash with each other, or just playing around with happy faces and sad faces and silly faces. Oh, and then there is the fun of putting arms where the ears go and shoes on top of the head and, yeah. I’m not sure why this toy holds kids’ imaginations as well as it does… but it does.

Next subject: Games. I have found that games are so important to teaching so many life lessons, not to mention things learned like strategy and logic and memory skills. First, I have to start with a basic deck of cards as probably our most used game hardware. Everyone has cards so I won’t point to them, but I will point to a page of games. Those games are wonderful with little ones, and then as they get older you can teach them games like rummy and poker. GG happens to be really good at both of the latter.

Our favorite board game right now is Blokus, but we play all of the ones I’ve listed fairly regularly. Thankfully, I think we are finally done with Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. I probably should have mentioned those on the Toys for Little Ones page the other day.

Then there are things like play-doh and jump ropes and hula hoops and sidewalk chalk and bubbles and yo-yos and dress up clothes. Oh, the dress up clothes. I probably should have mentioned dress up clothes when I did the toys for little ones. We have a corner with a tall mirror and lots of hooks going both directions. Dress up clothes hang on the hooks, play shoes are on the floor below, and there are containers of fake jewelry and tiaras on a shelf. This is another of those “we have so much it’s almost embarrassing” things. But this corner gets a lot of use. And the clothes also get used when the girls put on their various shows and plays. We don’t just have princess and dance and fru-fru type stuff, there is also a doctor’s outfit, pirate outfit, cowboy outfit, fire fighter, police, etc. Though, the fru-fru stuff does make up the majority of it, I’ll admit.

 
It appears the Magna Doodle is now called the Doodle Pro. We have the large one in the house and two small ones in the car.

 
What better way to teach our kids not to be gullible, than to teach them how to do magic tricks? This has helped GG to not take things at face value more than I can explain. It started when someone showed her a card trick. You know, pick a card… any card, then put it on top of the deck, the person cuts the deck, turns it over, looks through, and pulls out the card. GG was convinced it had to be magic. I showed her how it is done once we were home - look at the bottom card before you cut the deck and their card will be just before it. This was a light bulb moment for her, you could see the gears turning in her head as she realized it wasn’t magic, it was a trick. She’s been hooked on magic tricks ever since. When we went to a birthday party with a magician I had to coach her ahead of time to not blurt out how the tricks were done as the magician was doing them. I could see her whispering to her friend during the show, so I guess she had to tell someone - LOL.

Then there are things like bicycles and scooters and skateboards. And we must not forget the safety gear for those items. I require the helmet and provide but do not require knee and elbow pads and gloves. When GG is learning new tricks she wears the knee pads and gloves, but rarely wears the elbow pads.

Our art supplies include crayons, water colors, poster paints, markers, colored pencils, stamps and stamp pads, lots of stencils, a Spirograph, chalk, paint brushes of all sizes, glue (stick and bottle), scissors, coloring books, sketch books (one for each girl), and a huge pile of blank recycled manila paper that I found pretty cheap, something like 1,000 sheets for $10, I think. It’s a nice heavy weight and makes for great drawing with all kinds of media. Art supplies are stored in containers in a kitchen cabinet, and all artwork is done in the kitchen, either in the floor or at the kitchen table.

I know there are more toys that have gotten a lot of use, but I’m drawing a blank. Some things from the “little ones” post still get used, like the swingset and art easel. And I’m tempted to point to a computer, because GG gets a lot of use out of her computer. It might be more appropriate to do a post on software though, and point to which software has gotten the most use.

We are probably getting close to the release of the next waiting child list, as we are firmly in the window, with the most likely day being Monday.

We are about a week away from opening of the window for the next NSN referrals, but we are still two and a half weeks away from the most likely day of arrival. With that being said, I received one lone email yesterday telling me a large agency said the CCAA is through matching. However, when this particular agency posts something like that I usually get a dozen or more emails telling me about it, so I’m a bit hesitant to report it. If your agency has said this, please let me know. As of now I’m not giving that one an R rating at all, I need to hear it from more than one person before I can do that.

Now for the big question - where are we with the speed up rumors? No one has retracted their statements, everyone who was expecting a speed up, seems to still be expecting us to see more referrals per month than we’ve been seeing, and they seem to expect it to begin showing up somewhere between August and November. (By speed up, they don’t mean the wait will begin getting shorter, this rumor is that things are going to go a little faster than they’ve been going.)

Things seem to still be plugging along as far as travel and H1N1. I believe that the chances of being quarantined are a bit higher than some people are thinking, but still not terribly high. I’m aware of 7 people in the adoption community who have been quarantined in the past three weeks. I have no idea how many have traveled to China during those three weeks (that’s when they seem to catch most people, if someone on your flight in has it, you get quarantined). If we consider 4,000 adoptions in a year then that’s 230 people in three weeks, which would mean about three percent of travelers are being quarantined. I’m probably not aware of everyone, so we might want to think of it as five or six percent.

AFAIK, all provinces are setting appointments. I know of two agencies saying they can’t get appointments, but other agencies are getting appointments, so that doesn’t really add up to me. Some provinces are requiring you to be in the province for a week before you get your child, some provinces are requiring you that buy special face masks and wear them in the provincial affairs building, and some provinces aren’t doing anything different at all.

There are some threads in the forum discussing the immunization requirements (here is the most recent). If you are waiting and haven’t checked them out you really should (or if you’re home with your kiddos and just want to help, that would be great, too). You should also know there have been some issues of the child running a fever after those required immunizations and that causing problems during surprise fever inspections to make sure no one has N1N1. Unfortunately, common sense does not seem to be prevailing.

Today’s post is going to be about infant and toddler and pre-k toys. We’ll talk about toys for older kids later.

I’ll talk about (and point to) some of my all time favorites. Things both girls adored, and that got (and in some cases still get) a whole lot of play.

The Leap Frog table made it through both girls and is now being used by a cousin’s child.

The Learn through Music system looked different when we bought it for GG, but it works the same as the one that is out now, and TT is still playing with it. It’s a touch screen and very intuitive.

Going from hi-tech to low-tech, what kid doesn’t like to hear the sounds the animals make? It was a string when we were little, it’s a lever now. Same concept, but safer. (Though I doubt a child ever actually managed to strangle themselves on the string.)

The rings and sorting cube are now gone, and I didn’t save them between girls, so I had to buy a new set of each for TwinkleToes. But both girls gained a lot in muscle control and motor skill and logic by playing with them.

The easel is still in use. A lot of use. Enough said. It’s a great toy. I’ve lost track of how many rolls of paper we’ve been through. Plus there is the chalk board and the dry erase board. Both girls learned to write their letters and numbers on this easel. Me sitting on the floor, them standing beside me - I’d write it, they’d trace over it, then attempt to write it beside without tracing.

And then come the Little People sets. Twinkle Toes occasionally gets them all out at once and makes a village out of them. As old as GlitterGirl is, she still gets in the floor and plays with the various sets with her sister. GlitterGirl had the farm and zoo and house, and the other items have been purchased for TwinkleToes. We’ve also bought extra farm animals and safari animals and zoo animals to go with them (not little people animals, but animals that look real).

Megabloks. I both love them and hate them. The wagon with the blocks in it was given as a gift to GlitterGirl on her first birthday, several months after we arrived home, and then we started accumulating more bloks. We have a large storage bin that the bloks now go in when not being played with. The wagon gets a ton of use, still. Either GG caries TT around in it, or they put stuffed animals in it to give them a ride, or they use it to move props around when they put on their shows and plays for us… the wagon is a wonderful thing. The bloks have gotten a lot of play over the years, and they are probably wonderful, too. And the construction stuff gives some added fun since TT loves earthmovers and heavy equipment so much. Also, TwinkleToes is much better about putting them away than GlitterGirl was, which is a great improvement. Basically, the blocks are a wonderful toy, but they hurt something awful when you step on one with a bare foot in the middle of the night.

The magnetic letters that go on the fridge have also gotten a ton of use. Make sure you buy the jumbo letters with the magnets sealed inside, which I’m not sure the ones I have pointed to have the magnets sealed inside, since they are listed as being for 3+. The letters we have are about three inches tall and fairly wide, and there is no way a child can choke on them. The ones I’ve pointed to say they are jumbo, so I’m not sure why they are listing them as a choking hazard. If you buy them in person you’ll be able to tell for sure. Also, don’t just buy upper or just lower case. Kids need to learn both. We have upper case, lower case, numbers, and shapes. We still use them, too. Though I will admit to buying a metal thing to put on the wall for them after we bought our stainless steel fridge.

The wooden alphabet blocks have also been good for hours of fun. First it was just stacking them, seeing how high (GG was very good at that at a very young age), then later it was spelling words with them. You can also build with them, our set has 100 blocks and we can build houses and pyramids and large triangles and all sorts of things with them.

The shaped blocks are a ton of fun and offer a different kind of building experience. We also have some Foam Blocks in the same shapes now, but little ones need wooden blocks so they don’t take a bite out of them.

And last comes the kitchen and all of the food and other accessories that go with it. We finally got rid of the kitchen a few months ago and there is now a wall of IKEA shelves where the kitchen once stood. But the kitchen was worth every penny we spent on it, and then some. Lots of creative and imaginative play. And lots of storage areas for the food and other kitchen accessories we bought. We bought the huge plastic set of dishes and spatulas (and other things) for GG, and we still have most of that set, but we added the stainless set for TT.

Then there are the things like swing sets and swimming pools and sand boxes and toys you ride (trikes and big wheels and even motorized things) and all of the other bigger ticket items that are usually played on or with outside. I’ve only pointed to the flintstone car because it is so cool and the rest seem to be staples, things almost everyone gets.

We bought a cheap metal swingset when it was on sale at KMart, with a lot of different things to do on it and I’m pleased with it. I think we spent something like $170 on it a looonnnnggggg time ago, and it is still perfect. We spent more on the play kitchen than the swingset, come to think of it. The kitchen has probably gotten more use, though since it is played with year round.

If you are going to do a sand box (and if there are sensory issues, it’s a good thing to have) then I recommend one with a lid.

Oh, we mustn’t forget things like sidewalk chalk and bubble play, either. Two more things that have given us hours of fun.

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I’ll add in the toys our commenters have recommended on this post instead of creating a new one:

 
You’ve seen a bunch of people recommend this book, and I’ll give it a recommendation as well.

My next long post is going to be on toys. I’m still working on it, though.

For discussion today, let’s talk about how we feed our little ones in a restaurant. When GG was too small to eat restaurant food I fed her food to her while we waited, and then used the little stick-on place mats and put Cheerios on it for her to self feed once our food arrived. She had a small four ounce bottle she could handle that we kept water in.

Once she was old enough for solid food, she ate regular food on regular plates just like everyone else. Well, we fed her food to her at first, unless it was finger food. But other than that, we didn’t take anything special except her bottle and her spoon.

Oh, when we were out we used disposable bibs. At home we used cloth or plastic bibs.