Cheap Toys or Food Bank Donations

Have you noticed how expensive toys are today?  And noisy?  They all make noise!  When I was a kid.... okay, I won't go there, but.....  I guess all the noise is to stimulate and teach....

When I was a kid, we played outside with sticks and rode our bikes all over the neighborhood.  Today, families spend a small fortune on expensive, noisy, toys for their kids that they may or may not play with.  Even though my kids are grown, here I am, spending a small fortune on toys for the grandkids as well.  Loud, noisy toys.  In my defense.... I do babysit them four days a week and fall for the whole "stimulating and teaching" thing. 

And it must  be working because I have three of the brightest, most intelligent little grandkids ever!

So here we have these big expensive toys.  Like this Ford F150 below.  I didn't buy this, but it is my grandsons.  Isn't it every little boy's dream car?  And it runs!  He toots down the road in it and over to the neighbors.  It has a real, live, radio and a place to hold your water bottle.  Very cute.  But not cheap, I'm sure.

Here you have a pantry full of canned goods.

Here you have a little boy, playing with the canned food.

He takes it from the shelves, and puts it in the back of his truck. 

When the truck bed gets full, he relocates it all to a different shelf.  (Note:  Notice how messy this shelf looks, nothing is lined up.  Very little respect for his job.)

Then he puts it all back INTO the truck bed.

For an hour or more, he works diligently on this task.  He just keeps to the task at hand.  Moving canned goods from one location to the other. 

Now, look at this next photo. What do you notice about it?  Everything is lined up perfectly.  All the labels are facing front.  There's nothing willy wally about what he's doing now.  There's a whole new respect for the job he's doing.  Now, I don't know what this means.... I did think it was interesting....

Avery, cheering him on. 

Quality check to make sure all the cans are lined up and labels facing front. 

Oops, this one needs to be lined up better. 

Then it all gets taken back to the shelf, again....

Making sure they're all lined up straight and even.  Seriously, this can go on forever.  There's no fighting, no competition between kids.  No grabbing toys from each other.  This is their chosen play activity even on a sunny day when they could be outside!  So I let them. 

I don't know what this all means about his future careers.  Maybe he's practicing to be a stock boy, stocking shelves at the grocery store.  But when asked about it, Hunter says, "nope, I'm gonna be a fireman." 

So to all you parents out there:  Forget the big, expensive toys.  Just stock your pantry shelf and let the kids have fun! 

See ya!  We're heading to the Food Bank now!