crayons — Babylicious by Figur8

The Wonder of a Box of Crayons

One of the “must-haves” in the Go-bag has always been a box of crayons (or coloured pencils). The ability of this colourful box to keep my restless toddler’s bottom firmly planted in the restaurant high chair has been nothing short of amazing. So when Gavin’s Pelikan colour pencils were running down to their last leds, hubby and I decided to get another box.

I’ve seen Pelikan stationery at Times Bookshop and Parkson but don’t ever buy it from Times. A box of colour Pelikan colour pencils at Times will cost you something like RM17 but only RM12 at Parkson.

While browsing through MPH Bookstore in 1Utama, I saw this:

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It was a Thomas and Friends Carry-Along Colouring Set! It comes with over 70 pages of colouring and activity pages AND 8 Thomas and Friends crayons:

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It’s a good size for Gavin to hold it on his own without it being cumbersome. And it was all for RM10.90! What a bargain!

I managed to pry Gavin away from the Thomas and Friends‘ section of MPH by promising to buy him the crayons which kept him occupied in the carseat all the way home.

Amazon.com Widgets

Gavin the Artist

It seems like every time we go hunting for something that we want to buy for Gavin we can never find it. After we managed to source it from another country, or buy another version of it, the original brand we were looking for turns up all over the place.

Last year, we were hunting high and low for Crayola crayons for Gavin. We looked everywhere – Toys ‘R’ Us, Parkson, Isetan, Jusco, Ikea, and most of the baby shops we came across – and we found zip. Finally, we got my SIL who was coming back from Australia for a holiday to get a pack for Gavin. We also ended up buying him a set from a brand called Pelikan.

Lately, everywhere I look seems to be selling Crayola crayons… Isn’t that typical?

The reason why we wanted Crayola was because they had fat crayons making it easier for young children to hold and manipulate. Most other crayons here were the thin, pencil-thickness type which are much harder for a child to handle with their current level of manual dexterity. The other reason (the more significant one) is because Crayola is non-toxic. Of course, they also sell other non-toxic crayons here, but after reading all the scary news articles about products made from China containing questionable contents, you can understand why we get a little skeptical of any product designed for Gavin’s use.

Anyway, here’s what the artist Gav has to show for himself (note: I helped him write his name, but the rest he did himself):

Art