I had a rather ridiculous number of food cans after this week’s grocery shop, and when Veronika spotted them on the ground, she trotted right over. An instant toy! She immediately wanted to build with them.

At first it was simply a matter of building towers up and I loved watching her carefully balance the cans. There were two single-serve oatmeal containers as well, along with a smaller tomato paste can, and she zeroed in on these as perfect for the top of the tower.

Her expression was so intent and serious as she worked.

Then she took everything apart and started over.

This kept her busy for a while, until one of the towers fell over and she realized that the cans could…roll!

Well then of course we needed to go “bowling”. I grabbed a few empty plastic bottles from the recycle bin to be our pins, and our cans went rolling towards them.

Honestly though, she was less interested in knocking pins down and more interested in just chasing around a rolling can or two.

Soon this involved throwing. She was very proud of herself, so I didn’t stop her right away. Definitely only allow this part of the game over a padded surface, if you don’t want heavy cans thrown on your floor.

One note of caution: From the moment she started building, I was worried about her little toes, and yes, one can did fall on her. In retrospect, I would have put shoes on at the beginning!

Luckily we only had a brief moment of tears before Veronika was up and building again.