Toy Wars

At my house, there are two kinds of toys; Addie's toys, and Oliver's toys.  Oliver is my 9 month old grandson whom I take care of Monday and Tuesday mornings, and all day Friday.  He's a wonderful little boy (of course!) and I love having him.  He's pretty much always happy, or you can easily make him happy, and his laugh makes the world a better place.  Oliver respects Addie's toys, well, he isn't crawling or walking yet so I guess that's not really a fair statement.  But Addie definitely doesn't respect Oliver's toys.  In fact, she finds them particularly more interesting and obviously more challenging (to get anyway!).  And she seems to have much more fun with them.  She isn't allowed to run free in the house, but somehow she sneaks in sometimes and runs straight for his toys.  Convincing her that her toys are the appropriate play things isn't easy.  She is clearly baffled when I try to make the case that her toys are much better.  Oliver's toys stay neatly in his play corner.  Addie's toys are all over the place.  Oliver is entertained by his toys for a quite a while.  Addie is done with her toys very quickly and immediately starts looking for something new.  Oliver will share his toys.  Addie will not.

There is one particular toy that gets a lot of attention.  It's a roly poly stuffed toy with a silly cow face and it has some mechanism inside that makes a "boing" sound when its bumped.  I bought it for Oliver before I got Addie, and I've been waiting for Oliver to get old enough to appreciate it and understand how to make it make noise.  That happened a week or so ago and Oliver thinks its pretty cool and beats the floor with it to make it go "boing."  I was very pleased.  Then somehow Addie found it.  Oh what joy!  She thought it was the greatest thing ever!  She ran out to the yard with it and I heard it going "boing, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing"... you get the picture.  By the time I rescued it (I was laughing so hard it took awhile), it was slobbery and filthy.  She was very disappointed when I took it away, and her little quizzical expression was heartbreaking; "why can't I have that wonderful thing?"  I was able to clean it up, but the question is... who shall I give it to?  Who will appreciate it the most?  I really think Addie will, but she'll probably destroy it pretty quickly.  If I give it to Oliver, he'll probably have it for a long time.  Until... Addie finds it again somehow!!!