The current 'in' toys

I'm referring to the 'in' toys for Anya. Not Arielle. Arielle has yet to know how to appreciate toys unless pacifiers, mommy and daddy's funny faces are counted. :P

Having ball of time
Balls are still very 'in'. At one point, we actually confiscated all her little balls because of a major meltdown due to her refusal to keep them after play. One week later, when the balls went back to her, she was pleased as punch. Well, me too, because she keep her balls (and other toys) without much objections these days. Cheerfully on most days, in fact.

Then, there was the trip to Hokey Pokey which further fueled her passion for them. Almost every day, she asks to look at the pictures stored in my iPhone of her basking in the ball pools.

In her kindermusik class, they sometimes get to bounce and roll balls in sync with rhythms and beats too. And that led her big pink ball (that was previously overshadowed by its smaller, plentiful counterparts) to gain popularity suddenly.

Recently,  we invented a new way of playing with her big pink ball... ...


Yes, its hide n seek the ball! The earlier few times that I tried playing hide n seek with Anya was not successful as she could not grasp the objective of the game. The recent tries proved to be a success - at least the part when she is the seeker. She understood my instruction of going out of the room while I hide the ball, and that she is not allowed to peeped. And when I yelled, "Okay!" to indicate that I am done with hiding the ball,  I usually hear her response in the form of running footsteps and excited squealing as she bounces into the room.

I'm so looking forward to when she gets the hiding part as well (where she does not reveal herself or the item she is hiding when the seeker comes along) because that will be when the Furkid can join in the fun as well. The Furkid is a great seeker.

Here comes the drummer girl
Again, it was her kindermusik lessons that sparked off her interest. She loves making all sorts of sounds and noises from her toys. A few weeks ago, when we were at Kiddy Palace with my parents, my mom asked her to choose a early birthday present. She zoomed in to the musical toys section. So, from there, we picked out a set of musical instruments consisting of a marching drum, recorder, tambourine, castanets and a few others.

Every now and then, she asks to pop in her kindermusik CDs into the player and she would beat on the drum to the songs and prance around the flat. Occasionally, when the Husband is at home, he would join in the procession too!

Puzzle, puzzle, jigsaw puzzles
I thought that jigsaw puzzles make wonderful toys from young as it trains children's concentration, patience and perseverance among other good things. And of course, when one gets the hang of it and progresses to those hundreds or thousands-pieces puzzles, it gives you hours of quiet fun and a great sense of satisfaction when they are all put together!


It took her a while to warm up to them. We started her with a 24-pieces picture of Jonah and the big fish. At first, she only wanted to toss them around or identifying the fish / man etc. Gradually, we managed to get her involved under our directions to press each piece into its correct places. From there, her interest was piqued. With our help, she could do up the puzzle several times a day, tirelessly.

Well, as she would learn - practice makes perfect. She progressed to being able to rotate the puzzles (we pick out the correct ones and hand to her) into the right orientation and piece them together. This week, she has advanced to put the whole picture together on her own. Atta girl!

Done! All by herself!

Another jigsaw puzzle! Of Barney, no less!