Creative fun with a cardboard box.

Creative fun with a cardboard box.

"Mogocyco loooud!" Shouts my son as he sits in the kitchen astride a Dole bananas box that we scored at Costco a few months back. Looking over to check in with Mr. Cuteness I ask "What are you doing Elliot?" In his less-than-two-years baby speak with a big grin on his face he proceeds to tell me that he is going on a ride with his uncle and he is riding on the back of the bike. 

Two minutes later I find his sister on the floor in her banana box (for something so cool we have to have 2), and when I ask her what's happening she says "I'm fixing a lightbulb in my house."

What else have these boxes been this week? A dining table...

A truck...

...and of course (Mommy's favorite), a step ladder to grab all kinds of "goodies" off the counter. 

I also saw them used as a stage, a drum, a refrigerator, a horse, a bicycle, and a helmet, and those were just the play ideas that I understood. 

It's so funny to me how some simple cardboard boxes are some of the best toys that we have in the house. My kids love to use their imaginations, and a blank box holds the kind of potential for them that an artist sees on a white canvas or a writer sees in blank page. Of course for little children it's not a conscious thought, they just love to create and be themselves. That's an admirable quality, and a mental space that I wish I was in more often myself. Maybe I should get myself a cardboard box too ;).