Pictures by the Princess

Maddie has been taking quite a few pics lately, all of these were snapped by the princess herself!  We have tried to push the toy camera on her, which occasionally gets some use, but not nearly as much as our own camera.  The toy substitutes never seem to grab the attention of a 2Y9M old as the real thing.... it's quite the ploy by the toymakers.  I have to imagine that every parent has ventured into a toy section of a store and thought they had the perfect idea:  "oh, I'll buy the toy (cell phone, tv remote, laptop, etc) version, and then my kid will never grab the ones in our house again"... yeah, right!  After five minutes with the paltry toy substitute, it quickly joins the pile of toys that will never see the light of day again.  Not to mention that parents quickly forget about their wasted purchase(s) and are duped in the toy section once again -- just dig in Maddie's toy box for a data point:  cell phones, laptop, remotes... you get the point.

Believe it or not, we have learned.  We taught Maddie how to operate our remote control -- before bed, we usually watch 20 minutes of tv and she drinks a cup of milk.  Once she's done with her glass, she will get up, pause the tv, brush her teeth, come back into the living room, press play on the remote, and then snuggle back up on the couch.  Time spent in total with remote - 20 seconds, she only presses the required buttons and puts it down... it doesn't peak her interest like it used to, the random pressing of buttons has come to an end.