The world is his toybox

Dan rarely plays with his toys. In fact, Jim and I play with his toys more than he does. Yesterday, we put together a puzzle of Sesame Street board books while he played for at least 10 minutes with a baby shoe that he had outgrown. He put it in his mouth, bounced it up and down by the shoestrings, banged it on the floor, shook it around and turned it over and over.

Why buy toys? All these commercials show babies happily playing with the latest piece of expensive, electronically enhanced molded plastic crap. What a joke!

In the kitchen, he's entertained by some of my old kitchen utensils: a plastic ice cream scoop, some plastic measuring cups, a pastry cutter, an old butter dish, the metal grate over the air vent. In the living room, where Danny's funtime playland is set up, he cruises along the newly padded hearth, chews on the handle of my purse, pulls up on the sofa, crinkles the newspaper, plays with our shoes. Upstairs, he plays with my old cellphone, a baby shoe, our shoes, a cardboard tag from a piece of clothing, a plastic clothes hanger. His favorite thing to do is bang two objects together. I've noticed him banging objects on different surfaces, presumably because of the sounds objects make on different surfaces.

And anywhere he is, he's more interested in moving from one place to the next to stop and play with anything.

So no "toys" for Christmas or his birthday. We'll just clean out the kitchen and the closets and let him play with whatever won't choke him, puncture his skin or poke his eye out.