December 7 (favorite thing friday [automoblox])

Everyone who has children has probably heard of Automoblox and may even have a few different varieties of these chunky wooden cars.

If you've never heard of Automoblox before - even if you don't have children - you need to go check out these awesome little toys.



Now, here's the thing ... I prefer wooden toys above and beyond almost all other toys. The reason is because wooden toys are generally more sturdy, they are usually more durable, they are almost always timeless and quite often, they are works of art. 

With Automoblox, they come in both small cars and large cars.



And in a whole assortment of different colors.



We call this set baby blue and big blue. Novel, right?



We call this set baby pink and big pink because the novelty continues.  It's a good thing these toys are so durable, because Henry in typical five-year-old (smash! smash! smash!) boy fashion, loves to crash the big cars in to each other.  Notice the jagged front "bumper"?  Something tells me, I'll be encouraging him to stick with public transportation and steer clear of obtaining his own driver's license until he is 25. Or 50.  (Edited to add: I just found THIS truck and with what appears to be a chrome bumper, might be perfect for the little guy. Although probably not for the other cars in our collection...)

What's especially cool about these cars is that you can take them apart, hence the "blox" component of the "auto" name. As for "mo" I think that the 'mo you have, the more fun options you have for creative play.  (Mom, you were right - those four years of Latin have definitely served me well when it comes to understanding derivatives!)



Even the wheel comes apart, so you can swap up rims and different treads.



Then, you can rebuild the cars in all kinds of shapes and designs.



For the small cars, they just plug in to one another.



But for the larger cars, there are different shape "fittings" that you need to line up. Although even the fittings come out, so you can mix and match and swap so many different varieties.







Once you get the right pieces in place, you can build the most amazing cars and set up courses to race them and see what style / model goes the fastest.  Stockier cars with slick tires and a reduced number of Automoblox passengers usually works best for me,



Yo, Yo ... Homies!  Climb aboard!



If I like a toy, I'm much more prone to stop whatever it is that I'm doing and sit down and play with the children. Although sometimes, I play with these toys when the kids are away at school, because they never give me the opportunity to play with them uninterrupted, and Mama need some time to create.