Tip 63: Playing with simple toys

Have been busy lately, but I am very glad with Haruka's mental development and she has learnt to be very creative with her playing. This photo shows Haruka in her 5th month playing with towels. We have spoons too and she would feed her "pets" - the stuffed cuddly frogs, bears, dogs. Also, she likes mirrors. We went to a friend's place and our friend had a wide wall mirror in their home and Haruka could crawl and see herself and know its her. She made different reactions in front of the mirror. Babies love mirrors. Its all these simple things that make a baby creative. Not the many toys with push buttons of all kinds that you get from Toys"R"Us. But, simple toys played creatively with daddy through role play or even acting like a clown are the ones that shape creativity in babies.

Its sad that in Japan, space is expensive and I am thinking that the utility gained from a large space is less now, and is thus saving and planning my move back to my home country or to Australia or some place for a nice large home with a large garden. Yeap, would be buying my second property in maybe the next 3-10 years. With less space now, there is no space for an indoor baby car, baby kitchen cabinet set with ovens for baby cooking and lots of other gadgets these days. We have a playcenter nearby 10 minutes walk away, where we only pay 2000 yen (USD$20) annual membership and have a large play area with even a baby oven set. Just around 20 children go there at any time with more than sufficient place to play. Tomomi tries to take Haruka there daily unless bad weather does not permit it. But, whenever I am back home, I try to read to Haruka with lots of expressions, feed the "pets" and make them come to live and Haruka learns all this role play. :)

(Photo shows Haruka at 5 months old (top) and 13 months old (bottom)).