Childhood toys and activitys

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I've been thinking alot lately about my childhood and my memorys concerning the toys I had and the activitys I persued. It interested my because of the mental processes I could rememer in relation to them.

For Instance, The tradition Gender toys I had was Dolls. But I lost interest in them almost immediately. I was interested in them in regards to how they looked like people, but that was it. I never had conversations with them or considered them my friends, they were just something to be observed, not played with. My mum recalled one time when I was 2 or 3 at xmas getting a doll and being almost uninterested in the doll, but more focused on the fact that the blanket had a hole in it (It was a poncho not a blanket she told me).

I also had a Kitchen, and again I was more interested in observing it, I would open all the compartments and find out how everything worked but once I knew everything there was to know about it I was done. I never really played with it.

The toys I enjoyed most we're the Early Learning ones, Computers, things that were technical. My mum once got me a Mechanic Set and I used to love screwing and unscrewing the bolts over and over again, it relaxed me.

What really facinates me is when it came to drawing and colouring. In Nursery I used to be quite content to sit on my own and draw. When I started school they used to have picture that you could trace over with tracing paper. And that really relaxed my because the picture was perfect then. When it came to colouring I was never one who could go over the lines. So I used to love colouring paintings that had felt edges around the lines I didn't have to stress out about going over the line so I could colour as quickly as I liked. I also liked the paint by number you could get. As then there was a set of rules to folllow to make it perfect.

I also can remember a toy, that I can't remember the name of, But you used a pen to repeatedly draw a shape and it would go in a circle and create a circle of patterns. I would do that for hours.

I liked trains very much - my favourite toy was my elactrical train set.

I also liked numbres and counting - I had a collection of old money and I was always counting the coins.

I was also obsessed with with another toy. It was this colourful, plastic spring made of circles... I loved to throw it from the stairs because it loked as if was really moving and "walking" down the stairs.

My dad bought me a train for a birthday but I wasn't allowed near it in case I broke it.

I laughed so much when he ended up stepping on it and breaking it himself!!

I was obsessed with dice. I used to throw them and assign meanings to how they landed. 1,2,3 meant "no", 4,5,6 meant "yes" and so on. I had these little models of dogs, called Puppy in my Pocket, and I'd make up stories for them in accordance with how the dice landed. Kind of like one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. <getting sidetracked> Did anyone else have those books, the ones where there was a book, a dice, a map, a couple of keys and maybe a code book or a compass? There were Famous Five adventures and probably all sorts of different ones, but my favourite ones were the ones where you had to go to a haunted house and solve a mystery. I had three: Ghostly Towers, Ghost Train and one about a ghostly pirate ship whose name escapes me. Oh man! I wish I could find them. As a youngling they were my idea of heaven, in that they combined two of my obsessions: dice and ghosts </getting sidetracked>

So, yeah...dice. And fireworks. Not playing with them, mind, just watching them. And watching anything about them on TV. I was probably the only person in the country who actually enjoyed the 5 minute firework safety adverts that used to come on before the children's programes during the holidays.

Spirograph?
http://www.epartyunlimited.com/deluxe-spirograph.html

My favourite stuff was things like microscopes, telescopes, and anything digital, escpecially games. Oh, and I can't forget lego.

I remember one of my earliest childhood toys being toy cars. I just loved them! I had loads and just kept collecting them, I guess I was obsessed with them!

That's it Spirograph!

Damn I'm almost tempted to get another one, except I'm afraid If I did I'd never do anything else.

I also remember I had two cuddly dogs that I used to have conversations with. I think I had conversations with them cos it weirded my dad out that before I would talk to my fingers and name them. (I can still remember one of there names "SHAWY" was my pointer and "HENRY" was my thumb.)

I think the curcle thing was called a 'spirograph'.

As a very young child I used to play with my fingers all the time! I would make a particular shape out of my hands so that they had a mouth and everything and they would talk to eachother and they had facial expressions. I called them Eaters. My mom was always amazed that I could just sit somewhere by myself and be totally entertained with just my fingers.

Me too!

I was facinated by shadow puppets and would make my hands into a church or join the thumb and finger or each hand to make a leaf shape and even now I like to clench my two hands togeth so it looks like each finger of the right hand is using the finger of the left hand as a pillow!

Nowadays though I just tend to knaw on them!

My very early childhood toys were lambs and the usual infant toys. I had one that played music but I can't remember much about it. I think it played nursery rhymes while pictures would slide across the screen. My mum said I was obsessed with puzzles and could sit there for hours doing them.
I was never into dolls, I was more into My Little Ponies, Littlest Petshop, Pound Puppies and Puppy Surprise. I loved animals more than people.
I had an Action Man once and only played with the dog (German Sherpherd OMG!) that came with him. It wasn't a cheap toy for my mum to buy either.
I also loved Lego and Beta Blocks. I didn't injure myself as much on Beta Blocks.
At school with had these mechanical toys you put togather put I would just play with the wheels.
I did shadow puppets too. I made characters out of them, my favourite one being a dinosaur.

I used to really like Pound Puppies (one of my dogs was one), My little Pony, Care Bears and Poppets (no one seems to remember them but I loved them) but they never had any toys where I live (I live in a very small town, and my mum was on benefit when I was little because the hospital when I was born said I was going to be ret*d (said I'd never talk, never be able to walk, boy would I like to show about at their doors and give them hell for the upset they caused my mum!)

I remember poppits. I remember the cartoon too.

They never showed the cartoon over here

I read about them as they used to be in care bear comics, and I remember they used to advertise them around Xmas, but they didn't have the toys in our shops.

I was all about legos and jigsaw puzzles. it caused me a lot of frustration when I encountered a problem with assembling it and then I would throw it around and cry and within minutes I was back to carefully putting it together.

I also liked stuffed toys but I can't remember how I played with them apart from the fact that I had always one or two around.