Label Queen

Emily is now at the age where she is able to play with her toys – and as I’ve mentioned before, everything she gets her hands on goes in her mouth. With certain playthings, however, it’s not the bright colours or the music they play that is the biggest attraction – instead it’s their labels.

Over the past few months we have bought Emily several plush toys from Ikea and Tesco, which are great for small babies since they are soft and chewable and easy for little hands to pick up. They also have very long labels on them, which we were unsure about at first – even to the point that we considered cutting them off.

However, we changed our mind after seeing our little girl’s reaction to them – more often than not, having had a good old nibble on the toy of her choice, she’ll turn her attention to the label and stare at it intently before giving it a cursory lick.

It’s not just the labels on toys that seem to attract her though. Many’s the time I have looked in on her in the morning before she gets up and found her rustling the labels on her cot bumpers (also from Ikea, coincidentally) I now have to tuck them away so that she doesn’t start rustling them in her sleep and waking herself up (although I have to admit there have been occasions when the act of moving the label away has been enough to wake her).

Personally, it’s hard to see what the appeal is. But then again when you’re six months old, I suppose even the mundane seems fascinating.