Heirloom toys

We have a new favorite brand of toys! It is called Plantoys, www.plantoys.com
We discovered this brand of toy at one of our favorite local baby stores. Plantoys makes all their toys with the environment in mind. All of their toys are designed to stimulate the imagination, no batteries necessary! Plus, they are beautiful.
We learned a new term from the store keeper that we really want to try and follow. The term is heirloom toys. This means that you buy a good quality toy, usually made from organic materials like wood or cloth. This toy is sturdy and can be passed down for generations to come. Plastic toys are poorly made, often toxic, and because of their poor quality they end up in landfills. Not to mention they could harm your kiddo if they put them in their mouth!
So, our new goal is to buy toys that are sturdy and that will stimulate Coopers imagination. We hope that we can use these toys for future children in our family and if Coop chooses to start a family we hope that his little ones can play with his old toys, how sweet is that?! We will be happy to share our toys with Coops new cousin who will be joining our family in July!
Before we learned the term, heirloom toys, we had already started this tradition. Mr. D's mom has saved a bunch of his toys from his childhood and they are slowly being introduced to Cooper. We just received a cloth play house that was made by D's grandmother for D when he was a kid. We have heard that there is a Brio train set waiting for us in Seattle. Also, Coop's big cuz Jake has been so gracious as to hand down lots of toys that Cooper enjoys every day, thanks Jake! We have received a few token toys from his other cousins as well! This is a great way to reduce consumption and reduce waste!
Don't get me wrong, Cooper has plenty of plastic "gucks" that he is absolutly obsessed with and we aren't going to toss them. We just want to make responsible toy decisions as often as we can.
Happy playing!