Friday, March 5, 2010

How could I not have noticed?

I've talked to some friends and family before about how Dillon doesn't really play with toys but it hit me on Wednesday that Dillon doesn't play with anything in our house, ever. I spent a good portion of Wed. dusting Dillon's toys. Dusting them! Because they aren't played with. Not a single toy in our house moves on any given day. It's not that he doesn't have anything fun either. He has 5 bins under his bed: Rokenbok construction, a huge train set, G.I. Joes, Legos, and Playmobiles. He has an entire toy cabinet filled with action figures, cars, dress up, etc. We have at least 10 little kid board games, an arts and crafts cabinet, "homework" books and coloring papers, crayons, pencils, paints, etc. galore. In the living room he has puzzles, books, little people sets, I could just go on and on and on. And 99% of the time (I can almost say 100%) NOTHING moves. NOTHING gets played with. I don't know how I didn't notice any of this until now.
So what does Dillon do during the day? Well he plays out in the backyard either on the big wooden or small plastic playstructure, chases the chickens, wrestles with the dog, or jumps on the trampoline. We also spend a lot of time out doing things. We go to different parks several times a week, play afterschool on the playground at Cam's school, and we go to The Jungle and Chuck E Cheese quite often. He also has one favorite thing that he spends waaaaay too much time with. His computer. Oh and to be honest, both the boys watch too much t.v. For a while we had restrictions on the tv and computer, but lately, we've really let it slide and they spend way too much time doing both.
What's my plan? Well, we installed Windows 7 on Dillon's computer. (Thanks Uncle Kurt!) It has great parental controls and we were able to set up specific hours that the computer will operate. We set it from 6am-10am. Since we don't normally get home from getting Cam until almost 9am, that means he gets about an hour a day. Today has gone really, really well!! He got up and played from 7:00-7:30, Karl took the boys and dropped Cam off at school, got home around 8:30. Dillon played until 9:30, went back to play again at 10:02, and the computer wouldn't let him log on. He complained for a few seconds, I told him there was nothing I could do, the computer was magic, and he got out some pens and has been drawing me a picture of "a monkey getting shotted by a bad guy" Oh joy. But at least he's using his imagination. Which by the way, is the whole point of this rambling post. I am worried that without the ability to play with his toys, he will not develop his imagination. I love that we do so many fun things, but we really need to work on quiet playtime. If you have any ideas on any toys that would help, his birthday is coming up and I would love to cycle out some old toys and bring in some new toys that really require some imaginative play. Thank you!

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