This last week has been a pretty special one for me...my oldest son started kindergarten, and I got to talk with several old friends that I haven't heard from in years and years. I also drove north for 7 hours with three little kids in the back seat of our family minivan...

You know what's interesting about toys for little children? There doesn't seem to be any sort of cost/quality relationship, where by quality I mean how interesting little children find the toy to be. My kids like wooden trains and building blocks, which are our biggest toy investments, but I've also purchased various musical devices (little pianos, singing drums) which they snub in favor of a dime-store harmonica, an old tambourine and an ancient Egyptian drum we picked up used at a store in Greensboro.

When in the toy store, they are attracted to various cars and of course to the movie promotional toys and on occasion my resolve has broken down and I've actually purchased something (for example, a CARS movie toy tow truck that moves) or a large pirate ship. Once at home the kids quickly become bored and the expensive new toys are resigned to the bottom of the toy box.

I think a lot of the interest that kids have in toys is in novelty. Musical instruments that require them to make their own sounds, blocks that don't become toys until they're assembled into some fantastic item of the child's imagination, train tracks that are different each time they're assembled -- these toys always have novelty. A brightly colored truck that always does just one thing: move when a button is pushed and can not be a catalyst for the child's creative process quickly becomes boring.