Whenever we get to the end of a paper towel or toilet paper roll, my daughter asks for the "telescope" (i.e., the empty cardboard tube). Usually that's what she uses it as, but other times, she'll shove her tiny arm through it and ask, "Mommy, what is this?" Half the time, I answer, "It's a cast!" (Grandma Carol broke her arm several months ago, so Kaylie's familiar with the concept.) The other half of the time, I answer, "It's a vambrace!" Sometimes she goes along with my answer; sometimes she corrects me and tells me it's the other one; often, she flip-flops between the two over the course of the conversation.
Today, after the usual cast/vambrace routine, she took the tube off her arm and rested it against her leg. "Mommy, what's this?" "Well, if you could fit it around your leg, it would be a greave. Like a vambrace, but to protect your leg in a battle, instead of your arm." She considered the idea for a moment, and I could see she was trying to figure out how that would work, so I offered to get scissors so we could put it around her leg. She was game. "Look! I have a greave!" I even pulled out my iPad and showed her pictures online of vambraces and greaves.
If you give a kid a greave, and show them pictures of people wearing more than one, they're going to want another. And if you give them a pair of greaves, they're going to want a pair of vambraces to go with it. One paper towel roll tube and a few cuts later, we had this:
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| Kaylie sports her arm-and-leg armor. |
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| Armoring up. |
My toddler has cardboard armor. That's a parenting win, in my book. :-)
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