Little People

This is the first plaything Linus has named. He named this Little People person Brandon.  Matthew and I were both struck with surprise when he referred to it with a name.  All of his other dolls or stuffed animals are called by what they are (Baby, Duck, Bear) or a name I've given them (Floppy Dog).  I got this vintage Little People bus with six vintage Little People off of eBay last summer.  They are only as vintage as I am really, as they are from the era of my childhood.

Linus likes imaginative play with the Little People, his plastic dinosaurs and animals, stuffed animals, cars, and dolls.  He drives the cars around a lot both in the house and on the patio. He has fun pretending to cook and cooking for real with me.  He is becoming interested in trains after getting a Thomas book from the library.  I also got him a Thomas memory/matching game at a thrift store and he memorized the names of all the characters after playing the game just a few times.  He likes to play the game with three boards and giving me one.  He'll pick up a card and instantly know whether it matches a spot on my board or one of his.  I still can't fathom how his brain processes all that information so quickly.

One thing Linus does not enjoy is the participatory part of story time at the library.  He listens when the librarian reads three stories, but has very little interest in the singing, finger play, dancing parts.  He no longer sings along with the ABC's and just watches everyone else do the actions to go along with songs.  For the umpteenth time, he has not danced the hokey pokey. Last Monday, after a three week break from story time, while I danced the hokey pokey with the group he sat on the floor and looked at a book.  I'm thinking about giving up on the story time, since we read all of the time at home and I don't need to do head, shoulders, knees and toes with a group of toddlers to enrich my life.  A friend suggested maybe he is beyond that and is bored. She suggested I sign him up for Lil' Kickers, a soccer program for toddlers.  That costs a pretty penny and the library is free.