Friday, October 21, 2011

Tiny Collections

My children each loved collecting tiny things once they turned three.  Three is the age children are supposed to know better than to put inedible things in their mouths.  My experience has been that at three they still don't quite get the concept that their noses and ears are not pockets.  And they are fascinated by small things at three because they are finally allowed to hold them.

My daughter collected tiny Legos - we called them Ones.  Apparently the official name is 1x1.  She gathered them and carried them around in a sock.  Her brother was little, so the sock was meant to protect him from eating them.


My middle son loved cars - matchbox cars and hot wheel cars.  He lined them up bumper to bumper, always in the same direction on any line he could find.  I spent a lot my life stepping over lines of cars placed just so on the kitchen floor.   He also loved bouncy balls, the little rubber kind that you get in machines. 

My little guy, who just turned three, is obsessed with marbles.  We did have the talk about his body openings not actually being pockets.  I'm holding out hope that he will be the only three year old I've ever met that didn't cram a small object up his nose.  Fingers crossed.  He has no use for bouncy balls, no use for cars unless he's playing with his brother, no predilection to collect Lego pieces.  He just loves his marbles (pronounced "narbles" by the three-year-old crowd).

He carries marbles everywhere.  Now he has too many to carry in his hand or in his shirt.  So he uses random plastic food storage containers - like GladWare - to carry around his preciouses. 

I don't remember having a collection obsession when I was small, but I do remember circling all the two letter words in every book I could find and having a strong need as an older child to be surrounded by books. 

What was your childhood collection obsession?


10 comments:

  1. My son still lines up cars. And how clever of your daughter to keep her Legos in a sock. Did it work to keep her brother from eating them?

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  2. I don't remember having a collection of little things, but I collected art supplies. And objects that were going to be thrown away that I could possibly make an art project out of.

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  3. I don't remember collecting things either. I do know I never shoved anything up my nose though!

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  4. This is so funny. Neither of my kids really went through this--though we do have quite a marble collection because I like them and my son, when he was a little older liked them. We didn't ever have things stuck in orifices, either, though my daughter did write all over herself and the house with markers (washable, thankfully). As a kid, I was a stuffed animal girl--both my kids liked those, too. And my son carried a blankie until he was probably a couple years past normal (though managed to go to pre-school without it (it waited in the car for him)

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  5. I collected dolls, but I was a little older than three when that started. Never did get anything stuck up my nose or in my ears, but my brother did. Mom finally took him to a doctor when he got to smelling so bad. Turned out he had cotton stuck up his nose, and it had been there for a LONG time.

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  6. Well, I've got a story about my brother. One day when we were playing who knows what, my brother stuffed a couple skinny legos up his nose. They hung out like boogers until he sucked them back.

    Today at forty, those things are lodged somewhere in his sinus cavities.

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  7. This is so cute :) My little boy is three.

    When I was little, I loved micro-machines :0)

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  8. I dont remeber collecting anything but when I was an older child I did stick a marble in my ear.

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  9. Angela - Yes, but he did have an incident with some beads.

    Peggy - That's cute and very creative.

    Alex - Maybe you don't remember...

    Hart - My little one is in love with his older sister's baby blanket. We had to get him a backpack big enough so he could take it with him to pre-school. We stuff it in.

    LG - Gross and funny! Luckily, my kids confessed before it got to that point. Maybe he was trying to stop his nose from running?

    Shelly - OMG. That's crazy they couldn't get it out.

    Elizabeth - I remember micro-machines. Three year olds are awesome. Last week mine informed me that fairies are just pretend.

    Keena - I think ears are worse than noses for sure. I bet that was hard to get out.

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  10. I collected rocks. Every where we went, a rock came home with me.

    My boys have collected cars, rubber bands, and paperclips. I found that they both went through a "sleep with it" stage. They needed their collections in their beds to be able to sleep.

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