Patience and Perspective: Favorite Toys at 14 Months

As Audrey gets more and more into specific toys, she has started to gravitate towards a few favorites. This is kind of a new thing, because she used to just play with whatever was there. I think its really interesting to notice which are her favorites and speculate why she likes them.

1. Her favorite thing is still books. She loves them. They are the first thing she goes for when she walks into the playroom. She usually starts by taking them off of the bookshelf and digging around for the books she loves. She has a few favorites that she would be happy reading over and over again, mostly books with pictures of other babies or real life animals. I love watching her while she "reads" them. She brings books to me to read to her, but we only get about halfway through it before she is off again looking for a different book.

2. My BarnYard Friends - This was a gift from a friend, and Audrey actually has two of them. One has farm animals and one has pet animals. We keep one in the diaper bag and one in the house and they are her absolute favorite toys. She loves opening the house up and putting all of the animals in and taking them out or dumping them all out together. Each animal makes sounds if you squeeze them and we try to imitate the sounds together. She likes to take each animal and hand it to me to name, then I line them all up one by one and she just keeps picking them up and handing them to me. She waits for me to say what it is. So cute. Lately she has figured out how to line them up herself, too.

3. Shape Sorter - This was a gift from Lexi for Audrey's birthday. Audrey doesn't yet even attempt to put the blocks through the holes, she just entertains herself by putting them in the top and dumping them out. I follow her around picking them all up and putting them back into the box, then she immediately runs over and dumps them out again. Fun?!

4. Picnic Basket - This was another birthday gift and I was really surprised when Audrey started playing with it. She doesn't really play with her other electronic toys much very much so I guess I expected the same from this one. Like the two toys I already mentioned, her favorite thing to do is put them in and take them out. She also pretends to eat the food and drink from the cup. She prefers to do this one alone, though (odd?) and usually walks away if I try to join her for a picnic. Whatever, fickle little thing.

5. Bath Stacking Cups - I pulled these out when we moved into the new house and I didn't think Audrey would be interested. Maybe I thought it was too simple? Of course she surprised me and every time we go into the bathroom now she goes right for the stacking cups. These toys came in handy at the perfect time, too. She had been fighting bath time for a couple of weeks and would cry and try to climb out of the tub. Now she plays quietly and works intently on fitting the cups into each other. Always surprising me!

She is just now starting to get in to the puzzles she got for her birthday. Her favorite is the colors and shapes one - I assume because it has big knobs and the shapes are easier to identify. She gets so proud every time she successfully gets a piece into the puzzle!