Toys, unfortunately, are a necessity.

Before becoming a parent, I always had this idea that I would not overwhelm my child with a million toys.  Our friends and family who had children before us seemed to lose their house to an avalanche of toys.  Everywhere you looked was another annoying blinking noisy plastic thing!  How?  Why?  No, that would not be us!!!! I will just let my child play with kitchen utensils and cardboard boxes.

Then came Renee.  Our beautiful, precious, darling angel.  Our princess.  Our love.  Our slap in the face reality check.  And finally, after years of wondering, I understood.  If you give the baby an annoying blinky noisy plastic thing then you can get the dishes washed, or you can take a shower, or maybe, just maybe you can write a blog post (something which seems to always be last on the "to-do" list)!!!  And then the toys are no longer annoying; they are magical, they are amazing, they are life savers.  Alright, maybe I'm being a little dramatic here, but I think you get my point :D

Don't get me wrong, kitchen utensils held their ground strong for a long time in this house.  Renee enjoyed many hours of sucking on, waving about and banging the array spoons, spatulas, whisks and measuring cups that call our kitchen drawer home.

But, those have become old news to her and so last weekend I went to a local children's consignment store and bought her some used (well, new to her - and that is all that's important) toys to play with.  And she loves them!!!  And I love them!!!  And Jeff, well, he's still concerned that our house is going to be overrun with toys.  And maybe it will, but we'll worry about that when we get there.