Rained In, What Are They Doin? (Or, Ways To Furnish A Doll’s House)

Like, WHERE were all these things when I was growing up, did I really play with all those Transformers? There’s cute little baby bunnies and kitties and darling little furniture (gonna avoid the “pretty girl doll/Barbie princess” thing as long as I can – and did you know there is a huge market for Brer Rabbit-esque animal figurines dressed as humans? No one cares about Brer Rabbit’s proportions and whether he needs to be on a diet, do they?) but what’s really interesting is how I never understood why dolls’ houses were under the “educational” section at some local toy stores until now. As in, you can come up with all kinds of things to “make” your own furniture on a rainy day.

1) So yes, from the previous post, the Rockstars were coloring the cutouts off the Ikea toy furniture boxes. As in, whoever said kids get the most mileage from playing with a cardboard box must have been to Ikea. (And ate the Swedish Meatballs and Vegetable Medallions on a regular basis, and bought like, a tonne of colored construction paper for all kinds of future projects plus a gadzillion frames for all that kiddie art from the tonne of construction paper, and – and…….!)

Befores:

Afters:

The Miss’ art for the walls. In. SPIRED. 😀

(Ever notice how absolutely awesome every toddler is at abstract art? :D)

2) Here’s where a lot of it went:

Spot the Ikea stuff!

If you picked out the black square on the ceiling, you are a black belt at Ikea furniture shopping 😀 It’s one of those lights with the motion sensors which you stick in your wardrobe, which switches on when you open the doors… The people in that marketing course who said you need to stick little inexpensive items people never knew they needed in bins at eye level when they are browsing about tasteful store decoration that makes them feel like real decorators as in professional, totally knew what they were talking about. Did you know you were going to need a motion sensor-activated wardrobe light?

And then we found………. <drrum roll>

Plastic bits!

They’re from the packaging in one of Rockstar’s toys. But you can find similar when you order pizza – they’re those little things pizza people stick in the center of the pie that keep the pizza box from caving in on the pie in the middle. Ever opened a pizza box, took out the little white plastic thing from the delicious hot mess of cheese and sauce (oops did I manage to keep to family blog-ness with that?) and thought Hmm. Dis Does Look Like A Doll’s House Coffee Table. Right? Right? Us too!!

A.k.a. reading tables for the reading corner!

Or tea/ coffee table! Such stylish pointy legs!

Rockstar contributed a tea machine for the tv area in the attic. “The moving arm dispenses tea or coffee”. Which brings me to……

3) Rockstar not being Rockstar if he didn’t start building things for his sister’s doll house.

Guess what dis is?

(Caveat: Rockstar was actually not happy with me for putting this pic up but I was too lazy to take another.)

It’s…… an intruder sensor! Rockstar disappeared into his Lego Headquarters and came back with the thing one day…

And Rockstar was unhappy with me because when I took the pic it was missing the antennae, which the Miss promptly lost after he presented the thing to her with a flourish. (It showed up a few days later, just I didn’t re-take the pic. Frankly I’m amazed we ever saw it again, but anyway…)

Who Let The Dog Out? What IS dis?

…Yup. That is a picture of the “Robot Attack Droid” Rockstar made “to guard (Miss’) house.” You know, other homes have guard dogs, but nooooooo Sister of Rockstar must have Robot Attack Droid for her house.

And after the initial taking apart of his efforts, she stopped messing with his inventions. As in, she does value the little things he does for her. (Also, he told her, “You better not lose it, ha….. I used my Special Star Wars Lego to build it ok….!)

Why, yes, he’s got a lotta mutant Lego concoctions up there

Which brings me to a little side story… While there’s preoccupation with brushing up any school or sports skills your kid is behind on (i.e. camp, extra classes etc), there’s also substantial readings out there about the importance of free play. “Scheduling” free play is a bit of an oxymoron, but after hearing also about the importance of free play, there are days when Rockstar just sits quietly taking apart/ putting together things, and when he’s on one of these more productive kicks, I try to move meal and schoolwork times around to accommodate. It involves a….. “willingness to randomness” that I was once not used to, some of the Lego Rockstar takes apart esp the old Lightning McQueen ones bought years ago were pricey and it used to drive me nuts when our helper was forever knocking over some of the very detailed Lego models with the carefully and closely-followed instructions, then hiding the bits because she didn’t know how to put it back together.

But here we go Random Building of Stuff (I console myself that at least he’s “still” playing with his several years old Cars Legos). Besides, Rockstar’s putting special pieces into his building things for his baby sister. <swoon> Who could ever have a problem with that? 

To Infinity And Beyond! Note Facial Expressions