Earlier this week, I posted about my rather frightening experience with the toy that began to play La Cucaracha at 1 in the morning. If you read the comments, you'll see that Christina and I talked a bit about the toys of our childhood. Toys that did not play, sing, dance, interact, cook your dinner, or anything else. Toys that required creativity on the part of the kid to make them fun in any way. Christina mentioned she converted the refrigerator in her play kitchen into Barbie’s apartment. See, now that’s what I’m talking about. The sort of resourcefulness that children create best.
So I thought I would relive some of my own creative moments from a childhood of "lifeless" toys.
Sunday afternoons were always a challenge for me, because my parents took naps, so my play had to be quiet. One of my favorite things to do was to take my giant flannel-board (which, on its side, was wide enough to cover my doorway and probably about three feet high) and block the open doorway to my bedroom. I would put my folding chair from my table behind it, don my mom’s blue bathrobe, grab a piano book from the living room, and pretend I was in the church choir. When it was time for my solo, I’d stand up, open the flannel-board door (which was my recreation of the swinging half-doors in the choir loft at my church) and walk down the hall to take center stage.
Like Christina, I also created an apartment complex for my collection of Barbies. Mine was constructed from the very long ottoman to the couch in our basement. It was probably four feet long and basically a leather table that was completely open underneath. Talk about a massive two story complex!
The piano bench served as my desk when I played teacher, and I used the kitchen trash can (which had a lid) as my podium. I used all my dolls for students, and I named them after students in my Dad’s classes. Sometimes he or Mom would find old, unused tests or worksheets about to be discarded and bring them home for me to use in teaching my students.
I even remember creating an entire car console from construction paper and taping it in the backseat so I could “drive” while Dad drove. I had a steering wheel and heat/air controls, a radio (stole Mom’s walkman and covered it with a “face” to match the tape player up front) and everything.
I’m sure there’s more. Mom will surely remember some of the more embarrassing things. But let the record show – none of these things woke anyone up at one on the morning by playing La Cucaracha!
If you have some creative memories (not the scrapbook - just actual memories of creativity) - please share!
4 hours ago
4 comments:
Ahhh...Barbies were the thing for me. I would take over the end table in the living room (for as long as my mom would let me) for a Barbie apartment. The end table had 2 stories and with the ground floor my Barbie had quite the townhouse! I think the funniest thing I did was use my parents shoes for Barbie cars. Dress shoes made nice luxury cars while tennis shoes were a bit more sporty. If my parents would've just forked out the $$ they could've bought me the Barbie Townhouse and Corvette!! Hmmm...but what's the creativity in that!! :)
Ah, what memories.
In the wintertime my brother and I would recreate the "Lost In Space" spaceship with the picnic table and benches that were stored in the basement over the winter. We used to lawn chairs as our captains chairs with an old end table in between as the ships control console.
Our sleeping quarters were made out the benches. We taped planets and moons to the windows that we pretended was our spaceship's windshield.
Our uniform's were sweatpants tucked into our winter boots and stripped long-sleeve polo shirts with a taped on logo from the show.
And of course the dryer was "Robot" but he only had one arm and it was attached to the outside vent.
Also, LEGO's were used to create Barbie and GI Joe furniture. When I had my son my mother gave me 3 Rubbermaid tubs of LEGO's. There must have been 1/2 a million pieces. Those entertained us for hours.
You are obviously from a different generation than mine! We only got one Barbie each, who had to last our entire doll-playing years. Mine had a blonde pony-tail. My unfortunate older sister had a brunette Barbie with a short, curly bowl-cut. So sad.
I don't remember a lot of creativity, just jealousy of my brother, who got all the fun boy toys like Lego's, Lincoln Logs, and trucks.
Plus, we lived near a canyon, where we weren't allowed to go, but where we snuck off to sometimes to hunt for poliwogs and get into trouble afterward when we were caught with mud on our shoes.
iJaye - I LOVE the shoe idea!! I actually (toward the end of my barbie years) got a corvette and I thought I was pretty cool! I also had the barbie pool set (the pool really did hold water, but it cracked me up because when Barbie stood up next to it, it probably only came up to her calf) and the Barbie 6:00 news set. now THAT was pretty fun.
Janice - That is very creative! I like it - uniforms and all. :) It reminded me of another one of mine, too. when I was in 3rd grade, Mom and dad bought me a daybed with a trundle. (My bed up to that point was a hand me down from my sister.) I'd have friends over, pull out the trundle (both beds took up my entire room when pulled out) and we'd make it our "boat." anything that fell off the bed was in "the water" and we would have to fish it out. It was fun.
Skyepuppy - You want me to send you my old ones now? :) Actually I didn't have a ton of Barbies. I had about 4 that were leftovers from my sisters. And the first real one I remember getting was when my oldest sister got married. I was her flower girl and for a gift, she gave me the bride barbie. I also owned (this was like the epitome for me) The Hart Family. Mom, Dad, and twin toddlers.
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