CHEAP TOYS

Know the truism about giving a young child a toy and finding him more interested in the box it came in?  We had the Delinsky version of that over Thanksgiving, when the grands came to visit.  Oh, they loved their Legos, they did.  They built a road and cars and buildings, and, miracle of miracles, there were enough little bricks to go around.

But the biggest hit of the holiday were notebooks.  Well, not just any old notebooks.  I am a very organized person (how else to keep straight the details of my work?), so I have a closet filled with supplies that keep me organized.  The notebooks in question are ½” wide, 3-ring Poly-Binders that come in a variety of colors and sell for $1.59 each. I keep a stock of them and use different colored ones for different research topics.  I also use them for knitting patterns – one each for socks, hats, scarves, and so on.  And I keep plastic sleeves for storing said patterns.  Like I say, I do like organization.

So the kids arrived the day before Thanksgiving.  Since my office was outfitted for the occasion with wall-to-wall toddler Aerobeds, that was the first place the kids went.  Now, my office has been their bedroom for several years.  But this visit, I guess they were just old enough.  Their curious little eyes went straight to the computer.

“Grammi,” my grandson asked in a hushed voice, “could you print out a picture of Spiderman for me?”   Amazing what Google can do.  One picture of Spiderman, there in a flash.  When I asked if my grandson wanted it printed in B&W or color, naturally he said both.  I did both.  Holding the prints back-to-back, I slid them into a plastic sleeve, but a plastic sleeve with pre-punched holes needs somewhere to go.  Hence the notebooks.

By the time we were done, each child had a notebook.  Not only did each one have his own favorite pictures inside, but each notebook contained blank paper for coloring, even graph paper, which was a rare novelty for the kids.  Oh, and did I tell you about the labels?  What’s a notebook without a label on the front, saying to whom it belongs and what’s inside.  We printed some labels red, some blue.  My granddaughter’s notebook had the letters of ZEBRA done each in a different color.

Our notebook escapades continued on through their stay.  “Grammi, will you print out another picture for me?  Just one more?  Pleeeeeze?”  I had to limit things.  I couldn’t be making breakfast at the same time that I was printing out more pictures, and with their parents sleeping in, who else was going to make breakfast?  But while I did that, the kids were looking through the pictures they had, taking them on and off the rings, drawing pictures of their pictures on the blank sheets of paper, and trying to decide what new picture I should print for them next.

Black Friday came and went, but those notebooks were the best deal, hands down.