>Toys for Tots
>Bruiser’s birthday now has come and gone, which means, of course, that a number of brand new toys now are sitting in various corners of our house, collecting dust. You know how it is with small children; the $100 Highly Educational Activity Kube you bought at the Very Expensive Learning Toy Center is likely to go untouched, while the broken plastic slide you found on the side of the road will be your kid’s favorite toy for the next three years.
Allow me, then, to save you a few hundred dollars over the next few years with a few tricks of the parenting trade.
We’ve spent dozens of dollars on toy remotes for Bruiser, but babies are smarter than you’d think; despite all the bells and whistles on baby remote controls, he lunges for the real one every single time, and screams his head off when he can’t have it. That’s why it’s always a good idea to recycle non-working remotes by giving them to babies! For the price of a broken VHS player, you can provide your baby with endless hours of amusement (although it might be a good idea to duct tape the battery cover to the back of the remote).
If you don’t have a toy kitchen, you seriously need to get one. You can spend hundreds of dollars on the cool retro kid kitchens at Pottery Barn Kids… or you can do like I did and buy a used plastic kitchen for $12 (and that included about a hundred thousand little kitchen tools and utensils inside the kitchen), much like the one pictured.
The little kitchen is in my little kitchen, and like my kitchen, it’s one of the most popular places in the house. Punky has played with it non-stop ever since I bought it more than a year ago. She cooks alongside me and comes up with tasty dishes like pickleberry coffee and cheese hotdog soup, which she serves us with great solemnity and warning us to please be careful because they are both very hot.
Now, it’s Bruiser’s favorite toy as well. He has spent hours pulling himself up on the counter or sitting in front of the plastic cabinet, pulling out kitchen toys and tasting them. Every child who comes to this house plants his or her butt in front of the little kitchen and generally refuses to leave. I don’t know what it is about this thing, but it’s a freakin’ kid magnet.
To you, this looks like an old man cane. To me, this looks like Peppy, Punky’s first horse. Punky has spent many a happy hour riding him around the house (or even better, making the teenage babysitter ride him around the house while we point and laugh), and although she has since added several more horses to her stable, Peppy still gets the royal treatment.
See what I mean?
A few Christmases ago, my grandmother gave us this As Seen On TV Smart Spin Food Storage System. I love it, and use it for leftovers all the time. When I can wrestle it away from Bruiser, that is. Yes, despite all of the expert-tested, award winning, expensive toys that have been given to him over the last year, the Smart Spin is one of his favorite toys.
The Fisher Price Noah’s Ark is pure genius. I bought one at a consignment sale for $7 when Punky was six months old and she has played with it ever since. It started out as a teething toy transitioned into a way to teach her the names of animals, helped her learn to match pairs, taught her to count, and even introduced the concept of the menage a trois. Now, she uses it for imaginary play. It’s the best seven bucks I’ve ever spent on a toy.
There are many more cheap “toys” out there- these are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to leave your own greatest toys ever in the comments, whether they’re traditional toys or something your child just likes to play with. I can use all the ideas I can get!
>I bought 3 yr old Olivia a Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn House when she was 8 months old. Best. Toy. Ever. Yeah, it took up some space, but she played with it non-stop up until I passed it on to my niece a few months ago.
>Don’t ever throw away a refrigerator or washing machine box. You can always get one from a store if you’re not buying anything soon. Hours and hours of entertainment!
>My six month-old son is obsessed with the remote control and empty plastic water bottles.
>I so agree with Jenn. We recently cleaned out our attic and drug down a huge box from when we bought our TV. That box sat in the middle of our living room for days and days.I have been scouring the consignment sales for a little kitchen. I thought I had one at the last one I went to, but just as I was looking it over one of the workers came over and smacked a “SOLD” sticker on it. Gah!
>Love the cane.A few years ago, the #1 item on my son’s Christmas list was a pair of crutches. Yes, crutches. He got them, along with an ace bandage to wrap his leg in.He’s my only child and I love him dearly, but that’s just wierd.
>Suzi loves containers. Last night we gave her an empty Quaker Oats canister. Like Bruiser, she often prefers free non-toy items to her expensive storebought playthings.
>How could I leave out the plastic water bottle? I might have to add that in the post. Thanks, Emily!
>My little one loved the food spin storage too. I’m always having to hunt down bowls and lids! She also loved cell phones!!
>When my kids were a bit younger I brought a used computer keyboard home from work (I cut the cord before giving it to them). They LOVED this thing. For them it was a computer , a cash register, a “secret decoder”, you name it they’d probably thought of it.Oh yes, and throw a few blankets over a few chairs and you have an instant fort/tent. Give em a flashlight to take in there and there entertained for quite a while.
>oops… I meant “they’re entertained”.
>The Jumbo size diaper boxes…you know the ones that have 80+ diapers in them. My 3 and soon to be 2 year old LOVE to use them as boats. They even build bridges in the living room with blankets draped over chairs. I think they pretend that Lockness Nessy is after them. Oh…how about brooms and mops? What is it with the kids loving to get those out?
>There’s something about stuffed animals and my children that just go hand-in-hand. They STILL play and sleep with them, and they’re pre-teens now (12 and 10). Also? They’re both BOYS. I second the plastic water bottle idea, and add a chalkboard and a big ol’ pile of dress-up clothes. Little kids LOVE costumes, it seems, even if the costume is nothing more than mom and dad’s castoffs or a yard or two of fabric.
>We are going to visit my parents in a couple of weeks and my mom is worried that she won’t have any toys that will interest our 16-month old son. I told her as long as she has a plastic turkey baster we’d be okay. That, and an empty shampoo bottle.
>I have ONE cupboard the baby can get into. I have the plastic and stainless bowls in there. Stainless makes a nice “bell” with a wooden spoon.One time my husband put a ceramic bowl in there (the ONE TIME he ever put a dish away, I swear!) and it was immediately broken.
>The good ol’ TV remote. For some, the best toy ever. A friend of mine’s 18 month old latched onto the thing that “makes the window in the middle of the room do stuff and make noise”, and that’s all she wrote…nuthin’ else will do.Not having kids, I’m immune to that issue, though my pet rock once — after watching a marathon of Outer Limits (TOS) on the Sci-Fi Channel, tore my TV/VCR remote apart and converted it into a home-defense device, which I discovered when I vaporized the refrigerator and a neighboring apartment (unoccupied, I think…hope).If you come home and Bruiser has out the tool kit, and the remote in pieces…be careful where you point it…
>Another vote for the cardboard box. We just moved and my kids are in heaven.Also…we had a trampoline at the last house. Those boxes(top and bottom half) were the best. Stored in the basement, brought up for rainy days. They pretended they were canoes, with wooden spoons for ores. Oh…and paper dolls. My kids print off any character off the internet, cut it out and glue it to cardboard (mac & cheese boxes are great for this). Then they tape a straw to the back and have little puppets they play with for hours. Oh…and clothes pins(the ones with the rounded heads) & a 2 liter bottle. Putting them in the bottle and then shaking them out. Always was a big hit when they were littler. BTW…The crutches kid in your comments cracked me up!
>The crutches? AWESOME. I read that one out loud to my husband! I haven’t tried boxes much, but now you have me thinking. And I love the cardboard paper doll idea. Anonymous, I swear I see little kitchens at every consignment sale I go to. However, I needed a new high chair this season and while I usually see them lined up, I couldn’t find ONE, even at the start of the sales. Finally, I coerced my husband into going to one and he scored one. Which was perfect, since I didn’t want to be carrying that thing out to the car anyway!
>And kitchen utensils. My kids LOVE my utensils. The wisk. The pasta scooping thing. Cheese spreaders. I have found these in the tub, the sandbox, the baby-doll cradle. ???
>That little Noah’s Ark thing is in the nursery at church, and every kid will stop crying if you start playing with those little animals. It is a great toy!
>I have several of your suggestions! Our play kitchen was actually rescued by my hubby’s grandfather from a daycare center. He prepped it, but never painted it. So for my daughter’s 4th birthday I painted it pink just like the Pottery Barn style and painted the wooden knobs silver. She loves it! She also got from a family member the stainless steel cookware set and wooden food from Target. It’s her favorite toy. These might already be in your comments but two popular “toys” at our house are old cell phones and laundry baskets. Like the remote, kids can tell that these phones are real, even though they don’t make any noise. And laundry baskets, oh the joy they provide.And string. Never underestimate the play potential of string (or yarn or a belt from a bathrobe). And the empty babywipes box. And silk scarves…Can you tell we don’t spend money on toys? LOL!
>Peppy cracked me up!My son loves giant pieces of Styrofoam. If we buy something, and it’s packed in the box with styrofoam? He builds town with them or race tracks, or a million other things. NOT safe for baby, though, so now we have to hide them from him. Which isn’t easy.
>Boxes, any shape and size.Cardboard paper rolls (from toilet paper or paper towels).Plain paper & crayons.These are a few of our favourite things (along with brown paper packages tied up with string).
>When my daughter was 3 she got a bucket of 250 wooden pattern blocks. They are about half an inch to 2 inches in size, and about 1/4 inch thick. She loves them. She uses them to make elaborate pictures on the floor, but will also separate them into piles based on color, or shape and then use them as pretend “food”. She has a whole kitchen full of realistic wooden “food”, but prefers to use these blocks. Another favorite is the Cozy Coupe toy car. We got ours at a yard sale for $5 when Ellie was 2, and it has gotten so much use. Whenever my kids are outside, they are playing in it, on top of it, pushing each other, propelling themselves, across the patio, down the hill (that’s a favorite). The first time the baby was outside this spring she immediately headed over to it and tried to pull herself up on it. I turned it on its side and she played with the wheels. And it has held up to all the abuse. It is still as sturdy as ever, and the colors are still bright.
>my 3 year old loves those lunch sized brown paper bags. She packs them around filled up with various toys and things. I also save and clean out various food containers for her like the small yogurt containers, and she also loves margarine containers especially ones with lids.
>As a toy designer, I’m suddenly inclined to design a line of realistic remote controls and cell phones.
>We have the patterned wooden blocks too. Truthfully, I first bought them a few years ago for the now 8yo — b/c I thot they were so awesome. She never once played with them. The 2yo LOVES them. [Side note: They are too small for 2yos. 🙂 ]Plastic yogurt cups have always been a big hit here. And, I have long debated finding a play kitchen. Maybe I can hit some consignment sales this spring. You talked me into it!!
>Seconded on the cell phones. My daughter loves our old flip-phones.Also, an old laptop computer (inspired by her constant need to try to add her own input when I’m posting comments on blogs).And the best bath toy ever, the one she plays with all the time, is a plastic travel coffee mug. It floats, has a great handle, and dunks water on her head whenever she wants.
>I had a large piece of furniture sent to me…It arrived in a huge box…My Scooter decorated and made it into an apartment…Her and her friends played in it forever… they made windows and all…Preferred it to any plastic toys…Goodness she is ten years old now… But it makes my heart happy writing about her old favourite toy…
>The turkey baster and my jigger (yes the one that I use to measure my BOOZE with) are always dissapearing. We often find them hidden in the bed or along with the endless piles of Thomas crap that Toddler owns. Pretty much all of my kitchen gadgets are his “favorites” along with Hubby’s tools. He also frequently steals my knitting needles and yarn to make “train tracks.” Why we spent all that money on the real stuff when he just makes it out of yarn will never cease to amaze me.
>A 3 dollar plastic laundry basket has provided hours of entertainment already. Its a boat, a pushtoy, a climbing perch
>My kids can be entertained for days with a simple box. My oldest daughter will use her markers and decorate every inch of the inside and then they will play one game after another in it. And the toys will sit unused getting tripped over, stepped on and broken into many pieces. *sigh*
>water bottles, remotes, keys, old cell phones and laundry basket. Who needs to by toys?
>When Bruiser gets older just give him a roll of duct tape.Sticks can be taped together to become guns. Flat pieces of wood or dowels can be wrapped to become swords, daggers, knives. Every type of airplane or car that his little heart desires to construct can and will be attempted from random bits of junk he finds around your house, and a roll of duct tape.And a pair of scissors. But you may not want to just give those to him without supervision. LOL Lost a favorite sweater that way. when he was old enough to know better too.
>my pampered chef cooking utensil turnabout canister/holder thingy and my plastic cooking utensils…hours and hours of fun for my toddler.
Our favorite is the empty cardboard refrigerator box! Oh yes. It has been made into a time machine to walk through, a ticket booth for the witch’s Ball, a general store, and I saw someone turn it into a standing rocket ship. Empty boxes make great trains with straps over the shoulders. I make towns with windows and doors, out of cereal boxes and bagel boxes.   Empty cardboard boxes…whoooo hoooooo! Betty