Toysies

So in the world according to Charlotte, why would you want to have one big soft lovey when you can form an emotional attachment to five tiny hard plastic toys? That makes total sense, right?

These are her toysies: 

A set of little figurines from the show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, a Christmas present from Another Nathan, her toysies. I don't know why she calls them that, but now that's what they are.

She wakes up talking about them, she falls asleep talking to them, they hardly leave her side all day. She carries them around clumsily in her arms and hands, or in her little cloth purse, or in any of the various buckets we have lying around, you know from happy meals and such (and such = plastic pumpkins from halloween).

She lines them up on the kitchen table, on windowsills, on stairs. She sleeps with them on her pillow. (Once, I caught her sleeping on the floor while her toysies laid carefully tucked under a blanket on her bed.)

She holds them in her lap while she watches Daniel (the show), and plucks them up as each character comes on the screen. It is more adorable than you can imagine.

She seems to think they are the perfect toys for pushing around in her doll stroller, or in her grocery cart, and there is no convincing her (but why would I want to anyway?) otherwise.

She talks about them near-constantly. (We hear just as much about the toysies as we do dinosaurs, if that gives you any perspective.) She says all their names, she tells us what colors they are wearing (incorrectly, every time), she runs into rooms to announce which ones she is holding in any given moment. Or, more likely, which one she is in a panic because she can't find. (THERE. ARE. FIVE. My child is latched onto FIVE! tiny objects we are constantly trying not to lose track of.)

After a scare with Hattie a few weeks ago when we couldn't find her all night (she was sitting safely on top of the wastebasket in the bathroom, where she had watched Anneliese poop the day before, because of course), I am now thinking we should get some backup toysies, stat. (Especially Katerina. That little minx is a hider.)

So, yeah. Meet the toysies. They are here to stay.