Like other babies and toddlers, Squirm has a long-held fascination with the every day items around him. Often these items become his most played with and explored toys. Here’s five of his favourites for playing with inside.

An Old Keyboard

Squirm is fascinated by things he can press at the moment, and our laptops are a constant source of interest. Unfortunately for him, we don’t always want him typing messages on our laptops (he once sent a garbled message to a politician’s Facebook page) and he’s not always the most gentle with the keys. Enter my wonderful father who works with computers. He had this wonderful wireless keyboard in his discards pile and was able to clean it up for Squirm. He plays with it almost every day, typing out all sorts of messages for the world to read.

A Torch/Beacon

After we visited the Ipswich Art Gallery’s Light Play exhibition, I sought out some ways for Squirm to play with light. One of our discoveries was this torch/beacon from Big W. It comes in a couple of different colours (we have red and blue) and has a torch in the end, plus the ‘glow stick’ part. It has a variety of settings (including flashing) and has been an absolute hit with Squirm, especially during late afternoons and early evenings. Recently, it’s become even more fun because he can press the button himself and doesn’t need me to help him with it.

A Stepping Stool/Bench

I originally bought this stool from a discount store, back when Squirm was pulling himself up on furniture for standing. But once he started walking and started climbing up on things, he discovered a new way to use it. When it was overturned, it was the perfect height to practice stepping up onto and down off again. He sets it up in the middle of the living room and spends ages stepping on and off it and running around to try again. Then when he’s tired, he has a nice seat to sit on 🙂 (Plus it has a little container built in the top for him to store things in!)

An Old Purse, Glasses Case and Loyalty Cards

A couple of months ago, Squirm got hold of my purse while we were visiting my parents. Suddenly money was being thrown through the air, quickly followed by an assortment of very old receipts (thanks to this, I have a very clean purse now). After this happened a few times, I dug out an old purse of mine, along with some loyalty cards, a few Woolworths animal card doubles and an old student card and an old glasses case. These are all kept in an old handbag of mine, which has about 100 (or at least 5) zippers and compartments – it keeps him busy for ages.

Utensils

Squirm can reach into 3 out of 4 of our drawers in the kitchen now. The bottom one holds his plates and cups, the next one holds nothing (though he occasionally uses it to store food . . . ) and the next one up has out cooking utensils. These are the ones he likes the most – they make a wonderful noise when he hits them together or against other things. But he also uses them to push and pull things across the floor.

It’s wonderful to see the imagination Squirm has when it comes to ordinary household items – I’m always wondering what he’ll play with next!