I used to be surprised when I saw a mother letting her little kid play with stuff out of her purse -- sure, it occupies the baby, but that's your stuff! Who wants their personal possessions to be chewed or drooled on? I'm not that particular about keeping my stuff nice, but I still felt like the contents of my purse were private, and that I wouldn't let my child play with them just for fun. That's what toys are for.
Of course I was wrong, wrong, wrong. It turns out that keeping the baby occupied is a substantial motivator. And no toy is as interesting as real stuff -- somehow even a six-month-old baby wants to imitate adults. I started out by giving Isaac my credit card to chew while waiting at the cash register. He couldn't hurt it, after all -- he has no teeth. But now I've advanced to giving him my cell phone. It has a nice rubber-tipped antenna that he likes to chew. And it's a flip phone, so he can't reach the buttons. But his drool can seep into the charging mechanism, which confuses the phone.
I hear it repeatedly bleeping to itself as Izzy plays with it. Blee-deep? -- it thinks it's in the charger. Blee-deet! -- it thinks it's been removed from the charger. Blee-deep? Blee-deet! This can't be good for the phone, but I only take it away from Izzy when it occurs to me that he might get shocked by sucking on it.
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