Now you may look at the picture below and think, “Wow. A cardboard mailing tube. And I should care because…?”
But if you’re a certain five year-old, you’d see that mailing tube, ask your daddy to cut the ends off of it, and then you’d christen ye olde mailing tube as “THE MOST! AWESOME! SUPER SLIDE! EVVVVVVVER!”
And see those Star Wars action figures off to the side of the picture? Super Slide casualties. Which is understandable, of course. The Super Slide is very tricky.
Now I certainly don’t wish bodily harm on the Stormtroopers. That would just be wrong. But I’m thinking that they’re gonna have to buck up, throw on an air cast, and brave the Super Slide again, because that sassy cardboard cylinder has provided HOURS of entertainment this week.
Hours.
In fact, I’m thinking of having it bronzed.
So. What’s the favorite non-toy toy in your house? Think it can go toe-to-toe with THE MOST AWESOME SUPER SLIDE EVVVVVVVER?
Holla back in the comments. I have a feeling I’m going to laugh my head off when I read them.
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Daddy’s tie rack. Not the rack itself, but the ties. My kids spend HOURS creating very clever (although skimpy) costumes using those ties.
The kids I babysit, who are clearly future engineers, build suits of armor by cutting up coke cans, punching holes in them, and tying them together with little pieces of wire. Then they line it with duct tape, so they won’t get scratched. Unbelievable and a VERY good way to consume hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of mischevious little boy time.
Jackson’s is the cardboard backing from the packaging of one of his monster truck toys. It has pictures of a bunch of other monster trucks and he loves to look at them. The thing has gotten a little funky lately. I might have to laminate it. Fun question!
My daughter loves to take the junk mail and receipts from when I balance the checkbook and play games with them (store, school, whatever…she’s 8!) My son’s best non-toy is probably Blankey (that’s the blanket’s name!) which was made for him and is very big and great for making into a cape or a sling or a holster for his swords or for making forts. They also have a game that they made up called The Thorn Game which is something like the carpet is made of thorns so they have to lay out things like pillows and blankets to step on and if they step on the carpet, they die. They can spend HOURS playing The Thorn Game!
My 3 year old daughter (home from Ethiopia just one year last month) likes to talk on an old land-line telephone that used to hang on the wall in our kitchen. Just tonight she was talking to someone who was going to bring her a cheeseburger, french fries and a peanut butter sandwich. Think I’d like to talk to that guy. I’m kinda hungry.
Our kiddie potty seat makes a lovely hat.
Now if we could only use it as God and/or the manufacturers intended…
Laundry baskets and boxes are perennial favorites around here. They also love building forts with the couch cushions and blankets.
A bottle of Germ X. My baby (4 months) stares it down!
Oh glory. OH GLORY. My (almost) 7YO has always been the most resourceful kid around. Spooky is what it is. I’ll ask him if he wants to pack a toy up for the van ride (etc) and he’ll show me some scrap of garbage and say, “This is fine, mom.” AND IT WILL BE, much to my amazement and embarrassment.
The 18-month-old prefers Grandma’s cane, although I can’t say I particularly enjoy all the times he’s hit me with it in his ardor to play.
The 3.5 year old likes to play with the other grandma’s iPhone and other equally expensive gadgets. He’s able to make the TiVo yield to his will and he’s better at Wii golf than I will ever be.
I have two things.
Today at Costco, all the children wanted to bring home his or her own box, just for a toy. I thought, “This is it! Why have I been buying toys? All I need to do is come to Costco and we can all get FREE boxes!”
My daughter actually plays with the fake credit card that sometimes comes in the mail. She calls it her “baby dahlin’” and tells me that it is sleeping and not to wake it up. Too much!
My kids had days of fun with the boxes our kitchen cabinets came in. They were all connected across the front yard in a complex fort that served as a space station, Great Escape-like tunnels, military fort, and cowboy hideout. It was a sad day when they had to go, but the kids still talk about the monumental fort.
Yeah, I have a “no sticks or rocks in the house” rule, too. Seriously, my son needs no outdoor toys. He is perfectly content with a rock in one hand (we have an abundance in our *lovely* landscaped apartment complex) and a stick in the other. To poke things with of course!
Tomatoes…picked fresh from the garden. My 2 yr old gets the biggest kick out of playing with them…she even carries them around in her purse. I have to watch her closely or she’ll go and pick them while they are still green. I mentioned this on my blog and some sweet southern sisters jumped in and commented that all I needed to do was fry those babies up…I’m sad to say I don’t have a clue as to how to do that.
I love the toys that kids create themselves! They are the best ones. One day my little girl was role-playing with pencils. Kids are so precious!!!
My kids love the tops of acorn. They become little beds for any bug they find & then kill…
They also love my hard cheese grater. You know the style they use at Olive Garden. They take out the blade & use it for a space car for their veggie tales.
Washrags. They make great Barbie beds. Or roll them up to use as couch cushions.
This list could go on & on.
MY kids liked the costco sized empty bottles of tide. (Back when they were HUGE.) THey called them their orange cars and would push them around the kitchen island for hours. Literally.
My sweet little princess girl LOVES – and I do mean L.O.V.E.S! her daddy’s turkey decoy. So much so that her daddy had to go out and but a new one for himself, as it is now HER turkey decoy. Or, as she calls it, “tuwkey fwend”. So, I would kill for scattered stormtroopers and/or Barbies sliding down a tube. Instead I have a limp, dead looking, rubber turkey floating around my house and being wrapped in blankies on a regular basis.
Try explaining THAT one to the pastor when he brings his daughter over for a playdate!
Yeah! That is how we roll here!!!
Becky Jo
Seth is only 8 months, so we’re still discovering non-toy toys, but so far, a power strip takes the cake. Photographic evidence here: http://writerchicnlawnboy.blogspot.com/2008/08/weekend-in-review-part-i.html
And lately he’s taken to eating carpet like a goat, so that’s keeping him entertained, too. Oy.
Mylar wrapping paper and playing cards. When we were in China picking up our daughter, she kept trying to get the plastic hotel room key. We finally figured out that we could give her a playing card and that would keep her entertained for hours. If she lost it, that was okay, there were plenty more in the deck. She also got a present while we were there that was wrapped in red mylar – and that went everywhere with us. It even made it home and I think she still had it for a few months after that. She would cover up her animals, crinkle it, and use it to wrap anything else she could get her hands on.
My two boys fight over the cardboard tubes left at the end of rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. My youngest, who is 3, likes to pretend he’s a pirate by putting one over one hand and saying “Arr” or by putting one on his foot and running around the house screaming “peg leg, peg leg”.
The splash guard off of the potty was a real hit for a while. It’s on hiatus at this moment, but will make a comeback for one final season in a few months.
My 7 yr old dd spent the afternoon one day a week or so ago making a big screen TV and some popcorn out of construction paper for her two favorite stuffed animals. She spent HOURS playing with these items.
I spent hours later finding all the paper popcorn pieces all over her room and the living room……
If I buy my little girl (4) a new toy, she will take off the tag and I kid you not, THAT is what she will play with. That little piece of scratched up cardboard will get toted around FOR WEEKS. Lord have mercy how much money I could have saved if I’d known this earlier!!!! Get me a box of tags!! It’s even better if it has a little rubber band on it, they’re her favourites!! She’s a treasure :-)
Since I am 70 gazzillionth down in the comments, I have worn out just reading them with absolutely no input…except to say with five kiddos my self, yep, we have a few (too) many.:)
Ha ha ha, this has me cracking up. But I think I can top everything. My oldest (now 16) would love to play with a wipee. Whenever she got restless in church on Sunday nights when there was no nursery, out would come the wipees. She would wipe her face and hands and everything else for an HOUR! After church Sunday nights she would never need a bath. They would also work on long road trips! Good stuff, those wipees.
Send me the prize. My sons have spent HOURS AND HOURS outside in the past few weeks with an ice cream bucket. Which they’re filling with June beetle exoskeletons.
Yes, I have a VERY strict “nature stays outside” rule. The bucket is in the barn. :)
The hose wins at our house. All summer long the boys play with the hose. They fill up buckets, they make mud puddles, they hook it up to the sprinker, they make their own rainfall, they make the playyard into a water park.
Good thing we are on a well.
When I was a kid, my favorite nontoy toys were..
A huge ray about 2-1/2 feet wide, made of metal. It was shaped like a typical inner plate, with an edge angled upwards. I used to roll a marble around the edge, seeing how many circles I could make with it.
Then there was big cardboard boxes. I’d cut one box into strips and make channels that would go from top to bottom and all around another box and then roll marbles down through it. Dad said I should have been an engineer.
And remember, we’re talking about the mid- and late-1940′s here, young’uns.
“Ray” = “Tray”.
Darn laptop keys.
Oh I can so see my kids doing that! Drew sometimes up-ends a flat box or somesuch and zings his matchbox cars down. For hours.
My daughter used to make cell phones out of notebook paper.
Also, she got a karaoke machine when she was small, with a real microphone. Instead of the real microphone, she prefers to use her hairbrush, a toilet paper roll, or any other cylindrical object for a microphone.
Don’t laugh, but my son is always amused with empty Pampers boxes. He can spend hours playing with them.
Too bad diapers aren’t quite as cheap as cardboard boxes…
Pull-ups make great hats.
This summer it was cardboard boxes for the kids. They make great boats as well as a super fast slide going down the stairs.
Take care,
Julie
I had to share a picture instead- because a picture is worth a thousand words, on what one of Noah’s non-toys are-
http://www.helpmeeettosam.blogspot.com
Angie
Laundry baskets of course. My kids like to stand on them, grab a sword or other club-like object, and pretend they are playing guitar in a rock band. Well, a rock band that sings Chris Tomlin and VBS songs. While wearing sunglasses too. It is pure gold.
My 17-month-old son LOVES playing with toilet paper! It’s been funny to see that as he gets older the way he plays with it changes. He used to just shred it and pread it everywhere, but now he puts it in his pots and pans, in boxes, or in the trunk of his truck–and he picks every single little scrap up.
Chickster’s (just turned 1) favorite non-toy items include:
*An old computer keyboard (the boy sounds like he can already type, just clicks away at the thing)
*Just about anything he can open/close. Cabinets, drawers, etc.
*Empty yogurt tubs, the big ones, pringles cans, empty Puff cans, etc. He’s learned how to take the lids off and is just about to figure out how to put them back on.
*A basket full of laundry. Apparently it MUST be emptied.
*And anything that will hold still long enough for him to figure out how to get his teeth on it. He loves to use his new top teeth (all four of them) to bite things.
My boys love playing with the laundry basket, they push other toys around in it all over the house.
The toilet.
Flush. Giggle. Flush. Giggle. Throw in random objects. Flush. Giggle.
Repeat until Momma figures out why it’s so quiet in said bathroom.
The new toy of the moment is the ring that came with our monster lawn dart set. The safe kind, not the kind with metal.
The ring is about as thick as a straw and you can unhook a part of it so it turns into a jump rope. My 20 month old will play with that ring for a good hour, unhooking it, putting it back together, stepping on it, shaking it, etc.
Who knew the ring was more entertainment than the darts.
I doubt this will be the Super Slide of Awesomeness. How can you top that.
My son used to love emoty paper towel rolls. Free entertainment for hours !!!!
My 17 month old nephew loves balloons so much that I have threatened to buy him balloons for Christmas.
Cardboard box that the washing machine was in….. days and days of forts, playhouses, etc. When it finally was coming apart – it was a sled.
great stuff
My son’t favorite non-toy toy is a vegetable steamer. It is a great spaceship…The sides go up and down…It is even silver…Hours of entertainment.
My Tupperware. I seriously can not put away left overs because every plastic container is being used as a doll bed, or swimming pool, or pet cage, or…. Our fridge is full of mysterious foil wrapped food.
When my oldest daughter was around 3 months old she squealed in delight at the site of a red Pringles can. The friendly face on the front became “Mario” and it was her BFF for months to come. He even went on vacation with us.
My little Evie loves to play in the laundry. She has spend HOURS sorting it, putting it back into the basket and resorting it. At only 11 1/2 months she is well on her way to taking it over for me ^^
When Blue was about 2 he found a tube of Christmas wrapping paper. He unrolled it from the front door straight to the back door, for about a year he would run back and forth on that paper “trail”. When Brody and Kristin moved them to Nashville, I sent it in a box. Wasn’t any use to me without him.
Barb
Brody’s Mom
My 3 year old daughter likes our broom. She drags it all over the house. Her favorite thing to do with it is lean it up against the arm of the couch and climb up to the top. She will do it for hours – which drives me crazy, but is apparently lots of fun for her!
I’m glad you’re still doing the before and after thing. I have been taking pictures of all of ours, but I need more time too – so the 26th is perfect!
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