Toys I Recently Purchased

My 'bombshell' posts will have to wait. I'm in a unique kind of hell known mostly to special needs parents, but not totally; many neurotypical parents go through the same: School Choice Hell.

If you remember, I posted 3 months ago about an incredible school Dovi was accepted to, and I was so excited and started begging for donations. Well, it's crazy. My husband and I realized that we will simply not be able to make it financially and started looking into other options. Right now I'm in limbo - almost purgatory if you will (although there's no purgatory in Judaism) - trying to decide between 3 different options. Each option has major, major pros and cons. Meantime my husband went overseas for the Lizensk'er yahrtzeit and I'm trying to force myself not to focus on this subject which is boring me to death and driving me bananas. I'll have to sit down with pen and paper and write down all the pros and cons and try to get some clarity. AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So let's talk about something more lighthearted: toys.

Just as this whole school debacle started, I asked Dovi's therapists for a copy of his most recent report so I could have it on file before my IEP/aging out meeting. I was startled to read that they wrote that he had little interest in playing with toys. WHAT??? At home he LOVES toys. I spoke to them and realized that they had a motley collection of outdated toys. Dovi needed new things. So I bought him a bunch of new things (reimbursable through my MSC) and will send them to school tomorrow. Each of these toys is a HIT - he loves each of them! I will post links and explanations to the five toys I got today.






~1~





I know I wrote about this product already once, but I have to mention it again. IT'S FANTASTIC. Dovi is absolutely smitten with it. He's been sitting and pressing the button all afternoon since he came home from school. Really he should be busy stacking the gears, but he prefers to just press the button :D. Maybe at some point the therapists will start motivating to actually stack the gears.



~2~







 Dovi loves moving pictures; he won't be able to wind this up yet but he can move the on/off switch; and hopefully he'll have an attention span of more than ten seconds for this toy.

~3~




When Dovi was in the ER 3 months ago (for a burn), we were having a very hard time keeping him occupied. One of the Child Life Specialists brought over a 'rainmaker'. It kept Dovi fascinated for a long time. (She also brought a moving musical TV larger than the one listed above; these 2 toys kept him occupied for a long time). I already have a rainmaker at home, a very long one. This is smaller and more easily portable. He likes shaking it like a rattle or turning it every which way.

~4~

Dovi and bubble makers are best, best friend. I had not tried this one yet; previously I wrote about the Fisher Price No Spill Bubble Machine, but that one seems to break every other day. I tried this out tonight and it's fantastic. It blows tons of bubbles, and Dovi was in Bubble Heaven. I highly recommend this bubble machine.





~5~




Dovi's absolutely favorite toy in the whole wide world is a brand new electronic storybook called "Mein Ershte Bich" - My first Book - which is manufactured by LChaim and sings and talks in Yiddish. He sleeps with the thing, presses the buttons day and night. It's virtually attached to him. So I searched for something similar online, in English,to send to school. VTech has a better version of an electronic book, but it's much more expensive. So far Dovi isn't very interested in turning the pages, only pressing the buttons, but it'll serve the purpose.





I'm mentally exhausted from the events of the past few days. I am vacillating like crazy between the different school options. I am unble to concentrate on anything else and I'm driving everyone around me crazy listening to me over and over again. If only there was a magic 8 ball to help me decide. It's insane.

I will have to trust in HaShem to help me make the right decision. And once it's made, I will write a full post about it and what led us to the decisions we did.

Meantime, please hang in there!