my oldest toys

mom found an old box from storage with some of my oldest toys in it:

i think this is the oldest. it dangled above my crib and played a song. i have a picture of myself staring at it. the dog's head used to swing left to right and its eyes would open and close, but now it kind of just freezes. the music still plays though, after (i hate to say it) almost 30 years! toys from back in the old days were of such good quality.

instead of a rubber ducky i had a rubber dolphin to play with in the tub. i believe this was the only bath toy i had as a small child (mom later bought us bath books but still those were books). my brother and i would sometimes bathe together and fight over it. the dolphin would dive into water and jump up again and we would do this for the whole half hour while grandma tried to clean us. we never quite figured out what the hole on top of its body was for, though.

introducing prince charles. i got him when i was 3 or 4, and grandma named him that because the real prince charles had married princess diana the year before and was still object of admiration with all that hair and before the whole camilla business came into spotlight. grandma helped make new outfits for him (shown: chinese farmer outfit). i would hold him like a real baby and sometimes throw him into air. grandma would come home and see him in mid-air and freak out thinking it was the neighbor's real baby. i really liked him and played with him so much his neck broke and head came off. don't know how grandma managed to put it back.