Guest Blog: Finding the Must-Haves for Curious Boys
Olivia Peters is mom to two curious and energetic 10 1/2 month-old boys, Nathan and Jackson. When she isn’t chasing after her boys or planning family dream vacations with her husband, she works as a personal stylist via Keaton Row. (You can learn more about her styling and services at http://keatonrow.com/stylist/olivia).
When I was a little girl, my younger brother and I spent quite a bit of time making up and enjoying games that only we could understand. We had games for the yard, games for the driveway, games for the barn attached to the house that we grew up in…
The common thread through all of them is that wherever we played, we created our own world that inspired wonder, curiosity, and excitement. As the first birthday of my twin baby boys (rapidly!) approaches, I find myself wondering what kinds of toys, games, or anything else my husband and I can get them that would help set the foundation for inspiring that same wonder and excitement in them as they explore their world. Like all first-time parents trying to make decisions affecting their children, we’ve been doing some research to find what it is that we’re supposed to be providing for them at this stage. But really, the options are overwhelming. More than overwhelming! So I’ve instead asked for recommendations from a few mom friends that I trust, and came up with the other items because they are things that my husband and I would simply love to see our boys playing with.
Here are some of the winners:
- A comfy chair for each boy to call his own. The Pottery Barn Anywhere chair looks comfortable enough to sit in while they “read” their books, and drink from their sippy cups, and do all things “big boy” that they love to do… while still being the right size to fit into either our main room or their bedroom. And more importantly, it looks sturdy enough for boys to crawl all over it, stand on it, and just generally wreak havoc on it. Along those same lines, we are looking at the navy or denim color because we can pretty much guarantee a massive amount of stains from food, milk, and other things that we never quite seem to be able to anticipate in time.
- This Fisher Price play house/learning center to foster their love of exploring and playing. Our boys have no trouble crawling in and around and over and under everything. Here’s hoping that this play house will be enough of a distraction to take their attention away from the furniture and other forbidden spots around our home for awhile. (I know, I’m so naive.) Bonus for this potential gift: I first saw it on weeSpring!
- A few no frills wooden toys to give them the kind of quiet, creative play that is all about using their imagination. For instance, I saw this “Pound-a-Peg” set, and decided that it would kill two birds with one stone by also allowing the boys to pound away on something that is meant to take it. Wait, did I just say “quiet,” creative play?
- Magnetic tiles: We’ve been informedover and over that these are a *must have* as they can be found in every pre-school and promote important developmental skills – while also managing to hold a child’s interest. We also learned, after stopping in a recent boutique upscale toy store (the kind that makes you think that every. single. item in the store has been carefully selected for all the right reasons), that due to the popularity of the tiles and a recent manufacturer’s shortage, they were recently selling for $500 a set. (Fortunately, this is no longer the case!) Our boys may be just a bit young for these, but, regardless, they’re on the list.
