it began with Forbidden Foliage continued with the Incredible Interestingness of Power Supplies and Captivating Container Cupboards; it seems that the more determined we resolve ourselves to try and keep odin engaged in his “real” toys, the more determined he becomes in proving to us that those aren’t really toys at all and are, in fact, boring artifacts that serve no purpose other than to occupy space and get in his way as he scrambles towards far more fascinating objects of his interest.

in addition to simply waving this toy and that toy in front of him and exclaiming “see! see! IT’s A TOOOOOOOOY! fun!”, we’ve also adopted the montessori technique of limiting the number of toys available by rotating sets of toys in and out of circulation. the theory being, i suppose, that he’s not savvy enough to remember that the “new” toy is actually the same old toy that he played with a few weeks ago.

the results of an unofficial test of the efficacy of the ploy revealed that the “new” toys we unveiled today were able to deflect odin’s attention from the remote control for exactly 32 seconds.

as if to mock my experiment, moments later odin sleuthed out a package of batteries which he found so profoundly interesting that it took no small amount of cajoling to convince him that dinner might possibly be more fun than removing and replacing the duracells from their packaging.

i kid you not that not more than two feet away lay a vast array of underused and unerappreciated “real” toys.