A Brown Cylinder

Ella and I play a lot.

It's my favorite thing about this age.

She's into everything; anything makes her smile and laugh.

Play-time could involve a plastic cup, and she'd be thrilled.

Which really doesn't explain why my child got the world and a half for Christmas.

Part of the problem is that, no matter what, adults like me are suckers for kid's toys. We want to play with them; we want them to play with them. We fear what will happen if, God forbid, they aren't exposed to the latest and greatest in educational play-things. We don't want to be the parents that didn't expose them to the latest and greatest of play-things.

So, in essence, the baby-toy-makers have us trapped in the perfect labyrinth of mom guilt, American consumerism, and the freakish fear we all have that, if we don't start working with our kids now, they may never get into the London School of Economics, and their lives will be forever ruined!

So, for Christmas, Ella was showered. With musical instruments. Push toys. Sensory pieces, and Baby Einstein.

Santa's worried about Ella's educational future, too.

Case in point: The wooden pull car he brought her filled to the brim with amazing, primary colored, wooden blocks of all shapes and sizes.

Ella loves them.

Or, rather, Ella loves eating them while I hold them up and say emphatically, "Green rectangle."

Ella then continues to nom-nom on the yellow triangle while I start to build a house out of the red squares, while enthusiastically repeating, "Look, it's a cube, Ella! A cube!"

We were doing said song and dance yesterday.

It lasted all of about 15 minutes. Then Ella got distracted by a piece of carpet lint, and I was left cleaning up the mess of blocks.

It was in my clean-up escapades that I realized it.

Something was missing. A block.

One of the columns I'd just used in my red-cube house.

Where the heck was one of the brown columns? ("Brown cylinder, Ella. Brown cylinder.")

It was our - er, her - new toy, and we'd already lost a piece.

I began to search, checking under teddy bears, the coffee table, the floor blanket, pillows, the dog, the baby, in the dog's mouth, in the baby's mouth.

It was nowhere. ("Where's the brown cylinder, Ella? Where's the brown cylinder?")

After searching for the darn brown cylinder for twice as long as we'd played with it, I gave up the ghost.

It had plum disappeared in the place educational toys go to die, I figured.

So, Ella and I went onto greener pastures and went for a walk. ("Look, Ella! Trees! Leafy trees!")

She then napped, nursed, played with more carpet lint, and then got ready for her bath.

I laid her down on her changing table, singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes," and began to take off her socks.

Then her headband.

Then, her fleece romper.

It wasn't until I was removing her shirt that I felt it.

Something tumor-like protruding from her butt.

Panicked, I grasped the perfectly smooth and round surface, then pulled.

I was left holding something long, brown, and cylindrical. Straight out of her diaper.

And no, we're not talking about poop.

I held, in my little mom hand, the missing block.

My child, literally, had had it stuck up there the entire afternoon.

"Look, Ella. It's the brown cylinder again! The brown cylinder!"

***

Don't ask me how it got there. I have no idea.

I didn't think an almost 7 month old had the dexterity to stuff things inside her rompers and diapers. But what do I know?

I'm the one that thinks my almost 7 month old has the mental dexterity to absorb colors and three-dimensional geometry, so I'm likely not a good source.

Still, it was a hoot. Made all the better by the fact that I'd literally had a mini-freak-out looking for the missing block, and she'd had it on her the whole darn time.

It almost makes me think she was holding out on me. It's almost like she didn't want to play blocks anymore.

It's almost like she's too good for blocks with Mommy.

Such a snotty baby. It's almost like she's got a stick up her bum.

***

Seriously, what games and activities do/did you play with your 7 month olds?

I love to play with Ella, but a girl can only make up about 18 verses of "If You're Happy and You Know It" before she starts venturing off into body parts and gestures that are a bit too potty-specific for a baby. (I do not want my toddler to be the one at Sunday school screaming, "If you're happy and you know it, make a toot!")

So, spill, all you moms and early-child educators. Let me in on your baby-play secrets.

And quick, before I start writing a series on child development entitled "How to Build Red Cubes."

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Happy Thursday, everyone!