This is a topic aimed directly at me! I am a toy person. In fact, sitting right here on the couch with me at this moment are my stuffed Willie the Wildcat that I got for Christmas, my stuffed Freddie the Frurtle (he's a froggie/turtlie looking creature so I call him a Frurtle), and my Wii controller. Toys, toys, everywhere!
However, today's blog isn't supposed to be about my favorite toys now. It's supposed to be about my childhood. So that's where I will start. I am going to add a side note here: Books were always a part of my life and provided hours of entertainment and enjoyment, however, I don't really consider them toys so they won't be included in my list. I just wanted to note that books, like toys, have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
For as long as I can remember, I have been a stuffed animal person. I don't know that there was always a favorite, but I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have at least one stuffed animal as one of my favorites. In my basement now, I have a stuffed Snoopy from when I was little. He is definitely worse for wear, but he's still in one piece. I was never loyal to a specific type of stuffed animal. I've had raccoons, dogs, bears, mice, squirrels, cats, moose, and the list goes on and on. I have a lot of stuffed animals from childhood and adulthood, so they are definitely favorites.
Dolls were also a favorite. Again, I wasn't very particular. I had dolls that ate, cried, pottied, grew hair, and didn't do anything specific. The potty doll was not a huge hit. Nor was the doll who grew hair once I realized that there wasn't a never ending supply and when you cut it off, it really was gone and wasn't going to grow back. I don't remember being a child who always took a doll with me when we went places, but I'm not sure that was so much about my choice as it was about my parents' choice. I was pretty rough on my dolls. As I already mentioned, I was a hair cutter. I also discovered that cleaning their faces with alcohol was not a good idea as it removed the color from their eyes and made them look truly creepy, which was not improved by my attempt to fix it by painting them myself. I moved from baby dolls to Barbie dolls. I played with Barbies for a whole lot of years. I do remember taking Barbies on vacation, especially if we were going to see cousins who might also have Barbies to play with. I had a lot of Barbies and really enjoyed them for years. I think my mom might still have my Barbies in her basement, initially there in case I had a daughter who might have liked them, now I don't know why they are there. But maybe someone will enjoy them someday.
I played with Fisher Price toys a lot! I know my mom still has those because they are pulled out on holidays for my great niece to play with. We had a lot of sets: airport, house, hospital, castle, and Sesame Street. Those were always fun to play with and I mixed and matched and created stories for all of the adventures. We also had Weebles and a couple of sets of those: ranch and boat. I remember my brother and I doing everything possible to show that Weebles could fall down. :) Those toy sets got plenty of enjoyment and still do with the little ones.
I don't know if crayons and coloring books really count as toys, but I loved (still love) to color. I'm not skilled enough to do my own drawings, but I will attack a coloring book with a focus and precision that completely illustrate my OCD. It never really mattered to me what kind of coloring book I had, the crayons were the key! I had to have a lot of colors so that I could make choices and make things look right. If I was coloring people and their clothes, I made sure that I had complementary colors or a monochromatic color scheme, which wasn't always very pretty. Crayons and coloring books...I really should get mine out and do some coloring again. It is very relaxing.
The last one that really stands out is Play-Doh. I loved playing with Play-Doh...and to be honest, I think I still have a small tub of it in my desk because I love playing with it, especially when I'm stressed. I had some Play-Doh toys, including the hair salon. I spend hours making hair styles and cutting them off. I had molds for different types of food that I could make with my Play-Doh, however, I always had weird colored food because I didn't like mixing up the colors. I was a purist. As I got a little older, I would try and make things out of the Play-Doh. My artistic skills were never as developed as I wanted them to be, but that never stopped me from trying. I seem to remember that my favorite thing to make was a bird in a nest with eggs. It probably didn't look much like a bird, but I thought I was brilliant because I could make it. :)
I could probably go on and on, because I do love my toys! However, I think the ones I've listed probably fall highest into my favorite toys. I had a few electronic games that I liked, and as I mentioned, I have a Wii now, that I love! As I child though, most of my toys were ones where I had to use my imagination to make them really fun and I had more than enough imagination to keep myself entertained for hours. This was a fun look back at childhood. :) And perhaps encouragement to make sure and make time to play as an adult.
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