A Tent and A Balloon

During our last trip to Ikea in August, we ended up buying a tent…no, actually it is a tent with an igloo motif… for Ethan. There was a model set up in the children’s department in Ikea and Ethan was intrigued by it almost immediately! Although he fell down and hit his forehead whilst playing, we still bought the tent. So Pete was of course given the official task of setting up the tent, and when it was up we expected Ethan to be excited by it. Unfortunately our boy didn’t take a fancy to it at all. He would not even enter the tent. We figured it could be because of the fall earlier on in Ikea. Or maybe because the tent did not have a door; it just had an opening. So we did what any parent would do: we put his toys in the tent to lure him into it. You know what he did? He crawled in and dragged the toys out! He totally didn’t want to BE in the tent! Another method we employed in the hope of luring him into the tent was to take turns between Pete and I to enter the tent, then of course, Ethan would follow suit.

Lately however, we are pleased to note that Ethan has taken a liking to the tent. When we come home every day, the first thing he would do is to crawl eagerly into the tent. By the way, every time we go to Friday’s Ethan would request for a balloon. Now that balloon of his resides in the tent. So when he crawls into the tent, he would just hold the balloon and sit there with it. There’s a net opening at the top of the tent too, so we get to play peekaboo with him when he is in it… and you KNOW how kids love peekaboo, right?

Ethan has also found innovative methods to *play* with the tent:

• Stand inside and push/lift the walls of the tent, resulting in the entire tent looking as though it will topple over
• Push against the walls of the tent from outside, sometimes lifting the whole tent up.
• Walk around the tent
• Hold my hand and guide *me* to walk around the tent

Speaking of balloons, we need to get a new balloon from Friday’s every time the old one gets deflated. There’s something about balloons that interests kids, and Ethan is no different. On several occasions, he has attempted to use his *charm* to get some other kids’ balloon too.

A tent and a balloon – those are the latest items in Ethan’s toy collection. I can’t wait to see what’s coming up next…