Duplo absolutely loves stickers, or anything that looks like it might be a sticker. Give him a sheet of stickers, and you’ll find him five minutes later wearing about thirty, with little bits of the sticky paper that surrounds the actual stickers ripped into little pieces all over the floor. Give him one sticker, and he’ll wear it with pride, or stick it on you to wear with pride.
The problem is that Duplo assumes a lot of things are stickers when they aren’t. Take books, for instance. If a book, especially a board book, begins to peel at a corner, Duplo thinks that means that the peeling part is supposed to be pulled off. So he’ll pull at it until a tiny rip becomes a huge problem. We have a stack of books on top of our bookshelf waiting to be repaired after Duplo got to them.
It’s almost compulsive with him, as if he won’t stop or be content with himself until that “sticker” is all the way off. We tell him not to rip, but he ignores us. We try to take the book away, and he holds on tight and fusses. If we actually do take it away, it has to go all the way out of his reach or else he’ll climb and get it down to continue ripping.
Really, the bottom line is that no partially torn book can be around Duplo. I hope he grows out of this soon because it’s been going on for over a year.
I have that compulsion! Better keep an eye on that one. 🙂