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naomikritzerBack when Molly first got into crafts, when she was three, I bought a whole bunch of beads for her to use -- glass beads, wood beads, and plastic pony beads. (I'm not sure why pony beads are called pony beads. They're little plastic beads, maybe a centimeter in diameter, with a large hole.) She made Christmas ornaments, a badge holder for Ed, and all sorts of other necklaces and bracelets and decorations to hang up. Anyway, we still have a rubbermaid bin full of different kinds of beads, on our craft shelf. We also have a number of beaded items around the house that periodically shed pony beads.
A week or two ago, Kiera became absolutely obsessed with pony beads. She carries them everywhere -- usually two, one in each hand. Kiera has never had a blankie or a stuffed animal that she's bonded with for any length of time -- her lovey of the day has varied wildly over time (the blue teddy bear from the garage sale was It for a while; then the tiny plastic kitty that came with a Playmobil set my mother gave her). Right now, the lovey of the day is beads. The advantage is that if she loses them, they're easily replaced. The disadvantage is that she never wants to put them down (even to wash her hands, or eat) lest she lose them.
Last week, she found the mother lode -- the bin. She wanted to take all the pony beads out, and (since she couldn't carry them all in her hands) to transfer them from the Gladware container they're normally kept in, into the bottom half of a plastic carrot she'd won at a fair. (The top half had gone missing.) It was kind of like a tall, narrow plastic cup, except with a really unstable base, and after little plastic beads scattered all over the dining room floor three or four times, I went looking for some alternative container. I came up with a clear plastic water bottle. We got a crate of water bottles free from our grocery delivery service about six months ago, and haven't used very many of them. I dumped the water, peeled off the label, and offered Kiera that bottle instead. I had the foresight to prepare two bottles, since I thought (correctly) that Molly would decide this looked like a fun game and want to fill a bottle herself.
I'd kind of hoped Kiera might switch to carrying a bottle of beads around, instead of individual beads. She hasn't. She still wants a pair of beads to carry everywhere.
Toddlers can be so weird.
A week or two ago, Kiera became absolutely obsessed with pony beads. She carries them everywhere -- usually two, one in each hand. Kiera has never had a blankie or a stuffed animal that she's bonded with for any length of time -- her lovey of the day has varied wildly over time (the blue teddy bear from the garage sale was It for a while; then the tiny plastic kitty that came with a Playmobil set my mother gave her). Right now, the lovey of the day is beads. The advantage is that if she loses them, they're easily replaced. The disadvantage is that she never wants to put them down (even to wash her hands, or eat) lest she lose them.
Last week, she found the mother lode -- the bin. She wanted to take all the pony beads out, and (since she couldn't carry them all in her hands) to transfer them from the Gladware container they're normally kept in, into the bottom half of a plastic carrot she'd won at a fair. (The top half had gone missing.) It was kind of like a tall, narrow plastic cup, except with a really unstable base, and after little plastic beads scattered all over the dining room floor three or four times, I went looking for some alternative container. I came up with a clear plastic water bottle. We got a crate of water bottles free from our grocery delivery service about six months ago, and haven't used very many of them. I dumped the water, peeled off the label, and offered Kiera that bottle instead. I had the foresight to prepare two bottles, since I thought (correctly) that Molly would decide this looked like a fun game and want to fill a bottle herself.
I'd kind of hoped Kiera might switch to carrying a bottle of beads around, instead of individual beads. She hasn't. She still wants a pair of beads to carry everywhere.
Toddlers can be so weird.
