Toys du jour

Quinn has finally moved on from the cranberry juice bottle lid that he was mesmerized by for so long. Now he is magnetically attracted to a toy spatula that was mistakenly in with another toy we borrowed (at least, we see no connection between the spatula and the toy itself, but Quinn is not the least bothered by this). You can never tell what he's going to be galvanized by next.

Empty boxes and crinkly paper are popular, so Christmas will be a big hit. He loves a little truck we borrowed, and quickly caught onto opening the rear hatch to put small things inside it. He loves a rings-and-post toy, and a set of telescoping cups has had real staying power. They are the perfect example of kid-entropy: everything proceeds to great chaos - we build towers with the cups, and he takes glee in toppling them over. In fact he'll traverse the breadth of the room to knock a tower over. Unless he spies a beetle on the way of course, but most times he gets there to deal with the tower in his own spectacular little way.

He has started a new game with his dinner spoon which is both clever and cute. He takes the spoon and hides it under his high-chair tray, and gets this glimmer in his eye. We say "where's the spoon?" and he grins with glee. Then he triumphantly reveals the spoon from under the tray, holds it up over his head and gives a big toothy grin. Except sometimes he drops the spoon on the floor, or it gets caught somewhere along the way. His glimmer fades as he realizes he's losing the moment, and the triumph is a little muted when he finally succeeds (aided or not). But it's really something to see when he pulls it off. With an attentive and appreciative audience, and applied with the proper panache, this simplest of items contains all the magic you'd want in the world's best toy.