Cool Toys

This week I was back at Mary's house. We talked about this kid named Sam and she was really interested to hear that she was not the first to be in a situation like hers. She recognized immediately the similarities in their situations and is now convinced that the reason that she can't sleep is because someone is trying to talk to her!

Here is one of her sons with a friend. They're playing with this really interesting toy. I don't see how it's all that entertaining but all the kids around town have one and they seem to love them.

Basically it's a homemade car with the top half of a plastic coke bottle attached to a long wooden stick, then lids from other plastic bottles nailed together to be wheels. And then it never fails that they attach fake plastic flowers to each of the wheels, only one of his fell off. They just run around pushing these things for hours at a time...I won't tell you how many sharp nails are just sticking out for any little kid to step on or stab himself in the finger!

Then here is her youngest. You can't see too well but he has 2 empty tomato paste metal cans. He can sit for hours just scooping up dirt into one and then pouring it into the other. The thing is that he is 1 and 1/2 years old and these cans were opened with a knife, not even a can opener, so the lids were peeled back just enough to get the tomato paste out and now they're just hanging there with sharp edges all over the place. I hate watching him play with these but I've never seen him cut himself.
Here is her daughter. She's not so big into toys but she loves to fill plastic bottles with water and shake them and throw them, etc. But she's also so excited about her new shirt and her new dresses. She loves my camera and how it's just like a TV but she doesn't understand how she can never see herself on the TV unless I mess with it (ie, take a picture of her!!). They know I always have my camera with me and shen I came she ran to put on her new clothes because she wanted to see herself on the TV in her cute clothes. She is so cute and they are so grateful for the clothes that they were given a few weeks ago. Thanks SG!!!

I guess lately I've just found myself questioning some American cultural things. These kids play with nails and metal cans with sharp edges for toys, suck on batteries and money, and run around barefoot with glass and razor blades just laying around and yet they all seem to be just fine.

I don't really know what my point is here. I don't really think that we should all start letting our kids suck on batteries and play with nails, but why do our kids need 10 barbie dolls at a time, or an X-box with 25 different games, or a ton of movies to watch on their own TV for entertainment? Why don't we just give them a tire and a stick and let them chase it for hours? Why don't we give them a few plastic bottles and see what happens?