Running with scissors, sleeping with sticks

“I take this to bed?”

It’s naptime, and Anna is offering a toy for my approval. They often do this. Play has been fun and it’s hard to let go. I will let them take a toy to bed, assuming it’s the right kind of toy. Books are fine. Soft toys are fine. Certain large, smooth plastic toys are fine. Anything that can make noise, anything that might poke, jab, stab, or choke is not allowed.

Timmy joins in. “I take a bed?” His toy is a bright red plastic block … what are they called? Sort of like huge lego, even bigger than duplo, but with only one or two bumps per square, and the bumps are large domes. Anyway, this toy makes the criteria: large, no sharp corners, little noise-making potential, unless it falls off the bed. Check.

“Can I take this to bed, Mary?” Nigel has a hobby horse. Soft head on long stick. Potential battery, poke and bruise risk of stick, never mind what he could knock off dressers within a two-foot radius of the bed, cancels out cuddle potential of head. Horse is nixed. Nigel opts for a book.

“I take this to bed?” Anna is insistent. I look down. She is carrying, as she has done for the last half-hour, a largish wooden lacing bead on a small plastic paint brush. Think about that for a sec. The child is carrying a choking hazard on a stick. Fine in a room with an attentive adult, for a child who rarely puts things in her mouth; not fine alone in a room for a couple of hours, no matter how non-oral she may be. “Here, Anna. Have this bunny instead.” Choking hazard on a stick is removed.

And Emily? Emily has her thumb. She doesn’t need toys.

They are all quietly sleeping now. Emily with her thumb, Nigel asleep atop his book, Timmy with his red block laying on the floor by the bed, and Anna with her fluffy bunny tucked under her shirt. (No, mommy is not pregnant.)

Play will resume in two hours.