An interesting side effect of Christmas Crazy for Kids is that I have been paying an unnatural amount of attention to what toys actually get played with everywhere I go. I've already started acquiring toys for the massive drop-off that will be taking place the evening of November 30th, and I'm totally eying stuff that I've seen get lots of use.
At home, Alexis has three toys that she plays with pretty much every day. She looooooooves her dollhouse, she cannot be kept from banging on her toy piano, and she has been playing with her kitchen for nearly three years now.*
Thanksgiving was spent with more kids than I could possibly count, but they were all about the play kitchen as well. Boys and girls, toddlers to almost-tweens, they were all little chefs in training. If what kids play with today is an indicator of what our future will look like, we're all going to be drinking broccoli-flavored iced tea and eating a heck of a lot of M&M cookies. We probably won't be wearing any clothes while we do it, by the way, because it seems like my kid isn't the only one who feels the need to rip the clothes off of every doll within reach.
I still have a lot of toys left to acquire, so tell me, what gets played with a lot at your house? I'm especially curious about older kids (i.e. the tween set) and boys.