For those of you who have never been to our house, we don’t have a ton of toys, but the toys we have seem to have a lot of pieces (Thomas the Tank Engine, wooden blocks, Noah’s Ark + animals, legos, etc.) Ideally “open-ended” toys are supposed to foster creativity and imagination. However, I think these toys just provide something for me to step on the the middle of the night!
A few weeks ago, I stepped out of the living room for a minute, and when I returned, the kids had dumped all of their toys out onto the floor. I listened for a moment and realized they were bartering between themselves for toys. It was hysterical to see and hear the exchange between them, even though Liesl doesn’t have much of a vocabulary. Yet, she still seemed to get what she wanted.
The mess took forever to clean up. However, a little lesson in market fundamentals never hurt anyone!