It's a flower...really.

Bug finds the craziest things to play with. I am willing to bet that half of the "toys" in his toy box aren't really toys. They are just random household items that Bug thinks are his toys. I don't let him play with anything that will hurt him or that he could hurt (like scissors, or my razor, or my nice camera). But for the most part, I don't want to fight him over it all, so I let him play with the junk. Who knew a kid would love a whisk so much!?

One of these non-toys that Bug loved to play with was my toothbrush. Well, a new toothbrush, still in the package. All pretty and pink. Just waiting for my old toothbrush to die, so it could fulfill its duty and clean my pearly whites. Bug had pulled it out of one of our bathroom drawers. (That is so annoying, because now everything that was in the drawers, is now cluttering my bathroom counter top. And the drawers are full of Bug's items...and I think one of my socks.)

Anyway, Bug would play with this packaged toothbrush like it was the coolest toy -ever-. He would pound it on anything and everything. He would carry it around like baby baton...I'm sure he even threw it a couple of times. He would dig through this toy box with it. Oh, the memories.

Then, one day, Bug took the packaged toothbrush outside with him.

Just so you know, we live on the top floor of our apartment building. It's only the second floor, but it's still the top. And we have a lovely balcony, with a nice wooded area, lots of birds (including the coolest woodpeckers) and squirrels. Our downstairs neighbor has a little garden that we can look down on from one side of our balcony.

Back to Bug, outside with his toothbrush toy. Soon enough, I heard him whining about something. So, I went out to check on him. And there he sat. On the garden side of the balcony. With his hands and head pressed against the railing. I leaned over the railing to see what he was looking at.

And all I could do was laugh. Hard. And a lot.

For there in that little garden below, was a new flower. A pretty, pink, and packaged toothbrush flower. Stuck in the dirt, sticking straight up. Beautiful. But, I don't think our neighbors would much appreciate the beauty of a toothbrush flower. I ran downstairs, outside, around and discreetly picked the flower, then returned to my apartment. I cleaned off the dirt and returned the "toy" to Bug.

And just today, Bug figured out how to open the package of that toothbrush flower, and I found him with my toothbrush, sans package, in his little mouth.

"Here, Bug, why don't you play with this whisk, instead?"