I was born, and was blessed with a vivid sense of imagination. I still have it, and am thankful.
In today’s society, it seems that a lot of kids don’t know what to do with toys that don’t have batteries. Don’t have a Game Boy? Oh dear God in Heaven, you poor, poor deprived child. Get the drift?
We’ve managed to avoid the Game Boys and the Xbox’s or what have you. The girls are still happy playing on Disney.com or some such. I won’t say I’ll never buy that stuff, but for now, I’ve dodged the bullet.
Did you ever play with a box? Just a simple box. I can remember that. Space ships, tunnels, airplanes, homes. Mom would arm us with crayons (or paint) and paper and we would decorate our beloved box into whatever we decided we wanted it to be. The love of boxes hasn’t changed. My kids LOVE them. We had one heck of a fort going a couple of weekends ago. The boxes, some old blankets, a couple of chairs and a card table. That’s all it took.
Do any of you (this is aimed at the ladies) remember Kiddles? I may be dating myself but I had quite a few of them. Mom was seriously creative. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit much of that gene. We made chairs and bar stools out of Dixie Cups, toilet paper rolls and cotton balls. I’d take the cotton balls and roll a scrap of material around them, and walla! A cushion.
While Kiddles seem to have gone away, dolls and Barbies are a big hit here. I remember sleeping with about 20 of them in my bed. I remember making a bed for them out of a shoebox, and some hand towels. Some of the dolls would be in the “hospital”, complete with band-aids and such. I had those boxes lining the walls of my room. That was back in the day before I had kids. When I wanted to have at least 20 of them. Good stuff.
And who the heck needs bathtub toys? I did that with my first-born. I bought her entire sets of toys and discovered she was much happier with a plastic cup, a wash cloth, and empty dish soap bottle and the like. According to Mom, I was the same way.
I’ve passed on the imagination gene to my children. I LOVE to watch what they come up with. I remember buying a 12 pack of Kleenex. I set it in the hallway, intending to distribute in amongst the linen closets for future use. My youngest had a blast. The boxes were a castle. She had her Barbies. The boxes were stacked, the Barbie would climb, but the forces of evil would cause the Barbie to fall. And that was only a small part of it.
Imagination. It’s good stuff. Do you possess it or do you need a battery to keep going?
Comments
Simplicity may rule, but that doesn't contribute to the bottom line at Toys R Us.
Yet another reason why the materialism of society - which marketers would love to instill in our children - is a crock. Wonderfully put.
Posted by: Carmi at May 23, 2005 11:19 PM
My parents bought me toys as a distraction from my imagination. The toys didn't result in near as much trouble. ;)
-G
Posted by: Garrison Steelle at May 24, 2005 12:13 AM
Yeah we were all the same, simple things worked. I remember being told that 1 christmas I didn't get much but a few empty boxes and I loved it... I did get presents as well but empty boxes held sway...
Posted by: Gopher at May 24, 2005 05:46 PM
My parents bought two new couches once, that were delivered in two huge cardboard boxes. My friend and I put them together long ways, decorated the inside with carpet reminants, drawings and smaller boxes so that we had created our own little houses. We played for weeks in them, even sleeping in them one night in the backyard.
That was serious fun!
Posted by: Suzanne at May 24, 2005 08:18 PM
INdeed! Ah, those days of building castles out of boxes and fortresses out of snow, making secret hiding places out of bushes with overgrown overhangs. In the house I grew up in, I took a little, low storage closet and made it "I Dream of Jeanie"'s bottle.
Posted by: garnet at May 25, 2005 10:58 PM