Tiny Toys

When Herself was a little girl, she was exceptionally fond of tiny things.  Her favorite toys were the miniature ones:  a teeny yellow ceramic duck and a miniscule pink ceramic pig; a very small plastic kitchenette, with cabinets in a strange (yet no doubt popular at the time) avocado color, that had drawers for the wee silverware and coin-sized plates; a little matchbox that contained diminutive wooden animals and a few tiny fences. 

She also had an old coffee can that contained beautifully polished and painted wooden pieces that could be arranged to form a small farm town:  blocks with painted windows and doors; roof pieces; animals; Volkswagon-beetle-shaped cars; fences; farm silos; trees; and so forth.  She still remembers the faint scent of the wood varnish that would escape each time she pried the plastic lid off of the can. (In fact, one of her Favorite Things -- her magic wand -- carries a similar scent.)  Much to her delight a few years ago, she found similar, though much larger, wooden animals and barn pieces.  She keeps them separate from all of the Offsprings' other toys, though she and the Offspring would occasionally play with them together when the Offspring were younger.  

One lazy summer Saturday when she and her family were perusing a decrepit antique store in Maine, she spotted a marvelous item - a carved wooden apple that fit in the palms of her hands.  The apple opened to reveal the components of a little wooden tea set: tiny cups, saucers, teapot, sugar bowl.  It was so very beautiful that she still remembers it over thirty-five years later, even though she saw it just that once.  It looked like this.

Even though all of favorite her tiny things have now been lost to Time, she can still picture them in her mind's eye and recall the feel of them in her fingers.  The memories bring her almost as much comfort as the toys themselves once did.