I'm Convinced...

The other day the little girl who we call around the church office our "secretary-in-training" :o) was in the office while her mommy directed the handbell choir and her daddy (an assistant to the pastor) continued working on the second-floor offices, a project which seemed to have no end, but is finally almost done! So this little 1 1/2 year comes to us (the main secretary and I) where it is our privilege to babysit for 45 minutes every Wednesday.

Since the place where we buy our copy paper was having a huge, once-a-year sale where they offer everything from free food to t-shirts (and oh yeah, they also have paper on sale too:D), the main secretary took two of the guys with her to "help" get the paper. In reality, they only went along for the free food since the guys at Expedx loaded the paper in the van :o). So when this darling girl's daddy brought her into the office after lunch, I landed the official "baby-sitting" duty.

Now GJ is just starting to talk and sometimes it doesn't sound right what she's saying, and that's no exception to the "frog", a keychain that holds some keys on it and hangs in the cupboard. GJ is absolutely fascinated with it and will stand under the cupboard and point up while she says, well, something other than "frog"!

Usually after the frog, GJ will move on to her next favorite item: a box of rubber bands that are conveniently (for her anyway!) kept on a bottom shelf. She loves to take them out, handfuls at a time, and make a mess on the floor! But she occupies herself for minutes on end with the rubberbands, all the while talking to herself too!

Well this time GJ picked up the box and walked to a corner of the office and sat down by a stack of boxes. I didn't pay too much attention to her since the door to the office was closed and I could see her in my peripheral vision, so I sat at my computer and continued working. Every once in a while I would glance over and see her pick up a few rubberbands and say "ooooh!". About the fourth time I looked over, I noticed the pile in the box was diminishing but I didn't see any on the floor. I was curious, especially since GJ was quiet other than the "oooohs!". Here she had figured out that the handle on the box could be pushed in and that rubber bands could be shoved into the box through the handle! It made sense why she was so excited but also why I didn't see any rubber bands on the floor :).

GJ's third favorite thing to do is take the dozens (ok, slight exaggeration:D) of butterfly magnets the main secretary has all over the filing cabinets and move them all around. Usually this results in butterflies upside down or on the floor or on the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. But again, she is so entertained by these and will walk around the room babbling to herself and making us laugh too:D.

The thing I'm convinced about is that children do not need buckets and bins and rooms full of toys. Amy (the butterfly collector!) used to say when we first started watching GJ, "I need to bring in some toys for her" but now we know GJ doesn't need toys. Apparently frog keychains, rubber bands and magnets are enough :o).