Growing Up with Bwiends

You might recall that Elena loves her bwiends...She now does call them her animals and she has graduated from the cartoony bwiends, to the Schleich animal figurines.

Here is the original Bwiends post:

My favorite little thing Elena does lately is play with her bwiends (that's friends). Her friends are five little squirty bath toys which cost me about $2 at Target. Their names are: Moo Moo, Baa Baa, Duh Doh, Bloop Bloop, and Gack Gack, or Cow, Sheep, Dog, Whale and Duck. There was an Oink Oink, but he went the way of many of Hannibal Lechter's victims when the family dog chewed his face off.

All the friends stay organized via the buddy system. They all match up.
Bloop Bloop and Gack Gack - both water lovers
Baa Baa and Moo Moo - barn animals
Oink Oink and Duh Doh - used to hang out together, but now Duh Doh is a fifth wheel to one of the other buddy groups. Tagalong!

She can spend hours gathering and sorting her bwiends. This is great...she's practicing organization, or learning to herd. However, the flip side of this obsession, which is not so great, is that if one of the buddies is missing, she flips her lid and goes berzerk looking for them. So, suppose she has Bloop Bloop in her hand, but can't find the duck. She will incessantly call for the missing one, "OH NO!! GACK GACK???"UH OH!! OH NO!! Gack Gack, whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeehhhh rrrrrrrrrrrrr you?"

So the other day Patrick called me at work and said, "What the hell does gack gack gack gack gack gack mean in Laney-speak?"

My answer was simple..."Is she holding bloop bloop?"

"Yes," he said, suspiciously...

"She wants her duck."

And, here are some pictures where you can play "spot the bwiend."

The old bwiends:








And here are the bwiends-based games of late. They all involve shadows and lining up the animals so she can watch their shadows change shape. We think she's a budding artist!