tiny little balls

Like the rule goes, the cheap stuff or the stuff you don't buy? That's the stuff kids will play with. Case in point, one of little e's favorite games is "Dote Ball." This is played by kicking or bopping the SPAM beach ball up the stairs (the dotes) over and over until the ball lands on the second floor. Then you climb the stairs to retrieve it, kick it back down the stairs and start over -- batting away until it gets stuck again.

Another favorite toy? Tiny Little Balls. Every time we go to the park, we hunt for Tiny Little Balls. These are colorful little b-b-sized plastic balls that we find in random spots throughout the park. Our trip is not complete unless we find one -- it's like a veritable Easter egg hunt. Once we think we've found them all, we find four more the next visit.

Tiny Little Balls are great fun. You can scoop them up with your toy truck. Dump them out. Build a block chute and chute them down the slide. You can drop them through the hole of your ball-pounder toy and watch them all go down the ramp like tiny little gumballs. You can drop them on the floor and watch them scatter underneath all the furniture... Inevitably, every time I vacuum, I can count on sucking up at least three TLBs. Thankfully we have a bagless vacuum, so I can usually spot them in the clear cannister. In fact, just the other day Ed and I sorted through a few pounds of dog hair and dust bunnies just to save three little tiny balls.

Today, we hit the Tiny LittLe Ball motherload. I think we counted 22. Which if you've ever hunted for Little Tiny Balls is quite an impressive feat. You should've seen us -- cherring every time we found one, digging them out of sidewalk cracks with keys --- Little e was so excited. The highlight of the hunt was when he found a broken one. Because if there's anything he can appreciate more than a ball, it's a broken ball. You know what those colorful circles are in the begining pages of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" are, don't you?" Yes, those would be broken balls.

So we got home, counted our finds and added them to our ever-growing stash. Here they are in all their glory.