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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 3:37pm | IP Logged
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I was wondering if you all could give me some advice. I was deep cleaning my son's room this afternoon. We have sort of had an interesting line up of children. We had three boys first, and then 5 girls in a row. I have sort of transitioned mentally I noticed from the boys to the girls as far as providing toys, entertainment etc. (They just come more easily to me for some reason.)
Anyway, upon cleaning my son's room, I noticed that my 9 year old really doesn't have that many toys. I sort of lump him into the "boy" catagory and get him whatever I think of for the older boys, aged 12 and 14. He is sort of imaginative, and likes Imaginex toys, his twin sister's new Mr and Mrs. Potato Head and those expensive knights that are really heavy (and pricey) from Target. The problem is, he tends to misplace anything I do purchase for him too.
We have purchased VERY expensive Lego sets in the past only to have only the 12 year old "get into" them with Dad and they always seem to get lost. I don't think this particular son, the 9 year old, would be into any building type toys.
So, being an out of touch, and relatively budget strapped Mom, what are some fun, get your money's worth toys for this age group for a boy who would MUCH rather play an x-box game, Age of Empires on the computer etc.? He does enjoy biking and plays outside a bit. I just felt sort of sorry for him because when the boys were my only pre-occupation, we had little toy tractors, army men, dinosaurs etc all over the place. I was going to just order him something from Amazon with my points I just received in the mail, but I really didn't know what to purchase. My husband is sort of opposed to plastic toys in general. He (husband) had legos and bricks and car engines and such to occupy him as a kid, but that really isn't what Noah is like at all, so they have different interests.
Anyone know of something fairly inexpensive that would fit this bill??? It could be a few small things too. This isn't for a b-day or anything like that. I just wanted to provide something semi-educational as far as sparking imaginative play. I am sure the other kids would be jealous. Do you all get toys for your kids sometimes, "just because". Maybe it is Mommy-guilt rearing it's head. It is so sad sometimes when you think you may have missed something. Oh well. Maybe part of me wants him to sort of stay little too since he seems to be our "baby boy".
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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teachingmyown
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 3:59pm | IP Logged
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Army guys might be plastic and probably made in China, but they have great play value and they are cheap. My almost 11 yr old forms great battles with everything he has, army men, knights from castle sets, lego guys, etc. He also is the X-Box and strategy computer game type of kid. He did just recently discover interest in building more complicated lego creations. But for the most part, he has been hard to buy for as well.
So, I would say any kind of action figure, toy soldier type of toy so that he can get right to the imaginative part without having to build or set up a lot.
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In Christ,
Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
Remembering Today
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 4:14pm | IP Logged
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This isn't really answering your question, but your post made me think of a great thread from a year ago that I forwarded to several of my friends with boys in this age range.
10 year old boys
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Suzanne in ID
Wife to Pete
Mom of 7 (Girls - 14, 12, 11, 9, 7 and Boys - 4, 1)
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cvbmom
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 7:13pm | IP Logged
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My 8 1/2 year old son likes the toys from http://www.kaskeykids.com/. We even made up a game with the baseball guys and dice where you roll the dice to figure out if you got a single, double, triple, home run, or out. I'd be happy to share the rules if you'd like. It's great for learning about probability, too 
Hope this helps!
Christine
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Wife to dh - 18 years!
Mom to dd (16), ds (15), dd, (12), dd (11), ds (9), dd (8), dd (7), ds (5), dd (3), ds (2), and ds (1)
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 7:30pm | IP Logged
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Molly and Suzanne,
Thanks so much for the input. I think I may have army men hiding in my 14 year old son's room. I will go on a hunt. He was always SO imaginative, you could barely make him bored. He came up with so many things to play, I guess I just assumed that my 9 year old would figure out what to do on his own like his older brother. (The middle brother is the "fixer" type and fiddles with things, but can become addicted to video games as mentioned in the link you posted, Suzanne, on "10 year old boys". Wow! That was food for thought.
I did go online and purchase this really neat, too expensive, Space shuttle set with 30 different ways to transform it (it isn't a transformer, but it does a bunch of neat things) and it has astronauts and a little space ship and a bunch of cool stuff. I don't know why I purchased it! I only purchase toys at Christmas, and then just one or two, and at birthdays! But, I had the amazon points and just did it. Husband thinks I am whacked, but oh well.
Anyway, I think the whole game discussion is so interesting. My boys have an x-box currently and they want to play it all the time. (When not in school.) They will occassionaly break for biking, but otherwise, they are back playing. I took it away the other day and put "it" in a closet upstairs. They ended up playing nicely again etc. Then, they begged to get it out over the weekend to play a Bible game my Mom gave them. Well I thought, it IS a Bible game. That can't be so bad. Well, they have been playing it again ALL afternoon. So, I will have to put it up again. I am a bit worried because before I made this decision the other day, my Mom had told me she was getting all the grandkids "Wiis" (however it is spelled) for Christmas. I didn't really like the idea, but my Mom never listens to me on stuff like this, so I just said whatever. Then, after I put away the x-box, I felt SUCH peace and relief! I mean, it felt as if a HUGE burden had been lifted from our home. I resolved to call her and tell her NOT to get the Wii, but she had gone out of town for a day or two and before I spoke with her again, she had purchased the Wii!!  So, I am reluctant to ask her to take it back since she has it already and she stresses A LOT about the "perfect" gifts for the kids, so she was quite relieved about getting all the shopping out of the way and it is a together gift for the kids.(She also worries more about whether THEY will "like it" and they specifically were sort of "pumping her" for this particular gift. I wonder if I am setting myself up for disaster with yet ANOTHER "box" in the house? I always pictured avid readers when I first started out. Where did I go wrong?? 
I often wonder if my letting Noah watch more t.v. than I did with the older two (we didn't have t.v. for the first 7 years of our marriage) and letting him play games with the "older boys" has led to a lack of creativity or addiction to the games? He was also quite "addicted" to the bottle and had a HUGE week long fit when we tried to break him of the habit which made us wonder if he has an addictive personality. (Sort or runs in our families) So, maybe all these games are just bad??? Might be a whole new discussion to start.
Anyway, great ideas Molly, and thanks for that teriffic post, Suzanne. I bookmarked that to refer to for some great ideas!
Thanks for caring!!! 
__________________
Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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folklaur
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| Posted: Nov 05 2008 at 7:35pm | IP Logged
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would "fun-er" building toys be an option - like Magnetix?
more expensive - but way cool - is Snap Circuits. My ds10 loves that...
Army Men are fun too, my dh has a set that has little catapults and omgoodness do my kids love lining them up and then shooting cannon balls at each other's guys.....
ummm....
Oh, and I totally get stuff for my kids, "just because" (but honestly not usually this close to Christmas - but then we do big Christmas' so if you don't then there ya go!)
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10 Bright Stars
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| Posted: Nov 06 2008 at 6:38pm | IP Logged
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Laura,
I know, that's what I was thinking....too close to Christmas etc. I guess it is harder to get things "just because" when I really don't get out much; although they can have whatever they want at the local thrift store, which I noticed caters more to girls than boys.
Anyway, the snap circuits sound neat. My SIL mentioned today that Bionacles can be used more like leggos and can be put together to be more like robots with several appendages and heads etc. Cool boy stuff, right? I will have to look into those too. I guess one thing I don't like about boy toys is how dark they all are. Either dark spiritually it seems, or just plain dark as far as the coloring goes. I go to a boy toy isle in a store and it just makes me feel gloomy whereas the girl isles are bright and sunny feeling. Anyone else notice that???
We used to have a HUGE set of magnetix. Again, where are they? ALL of our toys get lost and things like that are just too expensive to replace. Plus, I have a lot of little kids around, so I was always afraid that they would be swallowed. We had a cool lincoln log fort set that I found at the thrist store for $4. I went online and it was priced for $72 for half of what I got. Again, where are the lincoln logs. With the 3 year old twins around, they tend to strew things everywhere. Haven't figured that out yet.
Anyway, I really appreciate the ideas. !!!
__________________
Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Toys for a 9 year old boy ?
