Yesterday morning, Mama sorted a bunch of baby toys, supplies, and devices in the basement, preparing some to be given away to friends for their impending parenthood and bringing a few upstairs to be placed into the Thalia toy rotation. One of these is a little play table that has on on side a Duplo-like block set and on the other (when flipped over) a collection of random objects like a small train engine, three blocks with A1, B2, and C3 on them, and a little plastic phone headset.
Siena saw this table toy when we got home and said, “What’s this?” I asked her if she ever remembered playing with it herself or remembered being scared by the train (it sits on a little revolving circular platform that can be wound up and then makes a tremendous racket when it unwinds as the train moves around). She didn’t remember at all, so she said. Which I find very interesting, that she is already forgetting things that happened a year or more ago.
Siena immediately attached herself to the plastic phone headset, pretending to make calls and invite friends over. She held onto the phone while watching a Muppet Show episode (Harry Belafonte), and when I told her it was time for dinner, she said, “I can’t come to dinner, I’m on the phone.”
Oh please, already?
I told her to tell them that she would call them back. Whoever “them” are. She said she couldn’t because they were still talking. I asked who, and she answered, “The people who are coming over.” I finally had to explain to her that her choice was dinner or the phone and going to bed. She brought the phone to the table, and it “rang” once during dinner.
This morning she brought the phone in the car with her on the way to school. Aye yi yi.
Let the record show Thalia had very little interest in playing with anything other than the A, B, C blocks, which were delightful little chew toys.