Hi friends, happy Friday! This is another open thread, so if you want to ignore the conversation starter and talk about something in your life, that’s fine, too.
This past week, Mr. Donovan and I had Mr. Donovan’s brother, our sister-in-law, and our niece who’s in 2nd grade come to stay with us for a few days. We love them like crazy, so it was great to have them here!
Because my niece was coming, I bought two things I loved to play with when I was little…
and Legos!
My niece liked doing them with me… But I might have enjoyed them even more.
I’ve written a little before about how being a kid was rough going for me, like it is for many people, and I haven’t written about the worst of it. There is something really nice and healing about re-connecting with the kid inside yourself in a totally positive way. I wonder if that’s one reason why adult coloring books are so popular?
Along this same theme, this week at work I watched the Disney classic Cinderella at work over lunch with Mr. Donovan, my boss, and two other writers. One of the writers had found out I’d never seen it before and she was shocked, so that’s why I set it up. It really changes your frame of mind to watch something like that in the middle of a workday.
What toys or games did you love as a kid? Or do you ever indulge in kid things as an adult? Let us know if you want to. I hope you have a great weekend!
Jaws the game (similar to Operation)
Haha! I never played Jaws, but Operation kind of stressed me out in an irresistible way!
I remember loving the Candyland game, and a game called Trouble. I also played the Operation game, and I loved Weebles and those Fisher Price toys. There was a Fisher Price toy garage and airplane that I loved. Thanks for the memories. ( :
WEEBLES. I forgot about them! And oh my goodness Laurie… we had that garage and that airplane! I completely forgot about them too. The Fisher Price dollhouse was probably my favorite, though. 🙂
Even though I’m now a woman, I loved playing with my brother’s erector set when I was a kid
Erector sets were awesome for everybody 🙂 Happy Friday, Barbara!
I thoroughly enjoyed playing with my Mattel Major Matt Mason space toys.
Dennis, my first thought was: That’s a lot of alliteration 😀
And then I Googled it and my second thought was: That looks freaking awesome!
One of the toys I loved most was a thing called the Little Professor. It gave you a series of ten mental arithmetic problems at various levels and showed you your score at the end. This was in the early 1980s, so it was all pretty simple with red LEDs. If a teacher had asked me to do sums like that, I’d have resented it. But it was just me doing them because I wanted to, and so I played it constantly. (I grew up to be a programmer, to the surprise of nobody.)
I loved Lego as well. Something odd I discovered when I moved to the US: “Lego” is a mass noun in the UK (“I like playing with Lego but I trod on a Lego brick”) but a count noun in the US (“I like playing with Legos but I trod on a Lego”).
Hi Thomas! Ohh, I remember hearing about the Little Professor but I didn’t really know what it was! Yeah, no surprise that you grew up to be a programmer!
I think I sometimes use Lego as a plural and sometimes I say Legos! Legos makes a lot more sense from an American standpoint, though 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Oh, wow! I can’t narrow it down to just one. Etch-a-sketch. Viewmaster. I still have both of these somewhere, and a HUGE collection of reels for the viewmaster. I had both of the little Tykes dollhouses, and does anyone remember the tiny Polly Pockets, back before they were discovered to be a choking hazard? I loved those. I had a Barbie “Whitney” doll that had a Polly Pocket in both pockets. We didn’t have TV when I was little, so we played a lot of games together. Aggravation was a favorite. I don’t think they even make that anymore. Looking back, sometimes I wonder if us kids back then had a little more imagination than kids do now. I told my sister (12 years younger) one day that we didn’t have internet until 13. She was like, “what did you do!?”
Etch-a-sketches were so cool and so maddening! 😀 I don’t know why Viewmasters were so magical, but they were! That’s so cool that you have a big collection!
I think you’re right about imagination. ” “What did you do??” ” — hahaha.
Have a great weekend, Jessica!
I had two Holly Hobbie colorforms sets–the house and the general store. I loved them! Also I collected Breyer horses and played with those a lot (with my Barbies). And also Fashion Plates: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1978-TOMY-FASHION-PLATES-2508-Crayon-Rubbing-ART-DESIGN-/232057764389 I sold them at a yard sale, but I kind of wish I hadn’t. Also, Smurfs were big for a while.
Catherine OH. MY. GOD. I had the general store. I even looked for it on eBay!! But the used ones weren’t sticky any more, and someone was selling an unopened package but it cost about a bazillion dollars, haha. (I bet somebody bought it!) And I had Fashion Plates! And Breyer horses! I don’t know why this makes me so happy, but we had all the same things!
It makes me happy, too! 🙂
There was a period in my maturation (between the ages of 9 and 14) when I had this craze for doing jigsaw puzzles. All my pocket money went of jigsaws from 250 pieces right up to 1500 pieces. I loved them. Way before the internet and its following technology.
Lawrence, I still like doing them! We always did them at Christmas. We have a bunch around here and it’s hard to make time to do them (and we have to be careful, because if we drop a piece, one of our three little dogs will probably chew it up.) But it’s such a relaxing and satisfying thing to do.
I have enjoyed reading these fun comments (reminds me a bit of ‘Santa Clause 2’!!! I didn’t have a lot of toys. I did have 2 or 3 barbie dolls. And an airplane for them and a house for tiny dolls called Liddle Kiddles. Yet, the one “toy” I had with me all the time were books. From learning to read in Kindergarten with Dr. Suess to 3rd grade with Nancy Drew, Sue Barton, and Tin-Tin, the books go on!! (‘The Mystery of the Tolling Bell’ scared my little girl self to BITS and Tin-Tin cracked me up!)
Hi Kris! Oh yeah… books were the ultimate entertainment for me as a kid. And they still are!
I didn’t have a lot of toys, mostly creative stuff like art supplies and clay. I do remember liking Tinker Toys but really wanting an Erector set (which I never got as it was either too expensive or for boys). I loved Etch-a-Sketch and am pretty impressive with one even now, if I say so myself. My most memorable toy experience, however, was being extremely jealous of my older sister’s new Barbie, and how she chased me down the road and almost killed me when I drew big ballpoint eyelashes on its face!
Karena, I never developed any Etch-a-Sketch skills, so I am impressed 😀 That Barbie story cracked me up!!
Derry Daring and her trick cycle. She was all I wanted for Christmas, 1977. LOVED her.
The Fashion Plates were right up there, too. Also, my Donny and Marie stage playset and dolls. And those Fisher Price little people sets.
I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven, and one of those Barbie heads with the eyeshadow and makeup, but never got one.
70’s nostalgia is one of my favorite things. 🙂
Oh my… I just looked up Derry Daring. So badass!
Speaking of things we never got, I always wanted one of those tumblers that turn regular rocks into polished rocks? I still think they’re cool, but I probably wouldn’t use it much!
When I was about eight or nine, my cousin Scott, who was three years older than me (well, he still is three years older than me, haha) built a rock tumbler out of Legos, a little motor, and a big coffee can. The can sat and turned on “tires” that came in Lego sets, and the motor (no idea where he got it, it ran on batteries) was housed in a base built of Legos. We just had to buy some of the polish stuff to put in there. He was always coming up with the brilliant stuff.
OH MY GOSH. What a genius! I love that!
I loved the gameTIP IT and remember playing it when I was five. I just bought the retro version for five bucks and played it with my grandkids 4 and 2. It was hilarious. We all laughed at how the 2 year old played by her own rules.
Hi Marilyn! I never heard of that before but I looked it up… that looks AWESOME to play with a 4 year old and a 2 year old!
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