Our best toy investment so far $$$

Toys are a part of every child's growing up years - to kill the cliche, today we have an overdose of them, and kids often look maximum once at a given toy. It surprises me that there is this ONLY ONE toy that Avani has continued playing with for the last 6 months, almost every day, sometimes even multiple times in a day. Thus it well deserves a special round of applause.

It is a simple magnetic slate, brought at the spur of the moment, when she was barely 18 months old.

We were still wondering if she would be too small to use it and so on, but then just picked it up as part of regular shopping from a neighborhood mall. Both Rajeev and I hate stereotyping boys with blue and girls with pink, but this was the only color available :(.

Soon after she got her hand at this, she tried hitting the slate with the pen, and we had to show her how to hold and scribble. She took her own time to get used to the toy, but the daily play time was evident right from the first days. Some of her other toys would sadly lie beside her in a pile totally ignored while she continues for several minutes with her scribbling on this little slate.

That is Rajeev and me...

We doddle a few common things for her sun, cat, tree and so on. One day she surprised me by calling out "Amma I have drawn Achucha and Adamma"(that is what she calls her grandparents. It was only a few lines though, but I was beaming looking at it, with pride no less than that of gazing at "Monalisa" at Louvre. She has continued to draw my ear ( an entangled mess of lines covering most of the slate), Rajeev and me, balloon cat, everytime a new pattern with details :). Even with guests in the house, she has been stealing time to go doodle and with her favorite set of people she makes them doodle cats for her :)

Improved doodling skills, Peppa Pig :)

She will get her doodling right with time, but for now her favourite toy has endured all the falls, scribbles and pokes and continues to be her best play-mate :). Our best toy investment so far indeed$$$

and her favourite Poocha (cat)