FIDGET SPINNERS ... seriously, help me out.

 Here it is the last part of May and I'm sitting up to write my first blog post of the year.  You see, there is something on my mind.  My grandmother had a stroke.  Praise God, she is doing amazing even if she doesn't realize it.  We've gone in and out of D.C. to sit with her in the hospital just about every day this past week (how on Earth my mother did that commute every day for 20 years is absolutely beyond me!) and I'm pretty much exhausted.  However, here I lay in bed tossing and turning.  Unable to sleep for the thing spinning through my mind.

​No.  This thing keeping me awake has nothing to do with my grandmother or the incredibly long D.C. trips.  It is fidget spinners.  Yes, I know I'm late to the game.  Apparently homeschoolers aren't the only unsocialized ones, their parents qualify too.  Granted I learned about fidget spinners much more quickly than I did "Rick rolled"  which I looked up this past week to find out this new to me phenomenon began in 2013. (Edited because apparently my desire to remember the facts regarding Rick-Rolling have me remembering the year wrong ... I was only off by a decade or so ...)

​The concept of fidget spinners isn't new to me.  It is one I've employed since I became a parent to a boy.  However.  This craze is absurd.  These fidget spinners, ranging in price from $4.99-$1,000 (in my limited research on them, done exactly 2.2 seconds ago) do nothing.  They don't.   Nothing.  No thing.  They are nonsense. They are hunks of plastic, bamboo, or metal NONSENSE.

​I allow my boys to keep a handful of Lego, a Matchbox car, or if they are old enough and self controlling enough a stick to whittle.  They know they have my permission to use these during our read alouds, church, or any time they are required to be quiet without any reason to use their hands, such as writing.

​Only one of my girls really needs the help, but they are all allowed to knit, hand sew, or do any of the above things mentioned for the boys. (Just so I don't get any disapproving comments, OF COURSE I would allow my boys to knit, embroider or any such thing ... they'd rather the Lego and cars!)

​These things allow their brains to focus on the words they need to be hearing, they are things we already have, and these things have purposes of their own.

​We also use exercise balls and classical music to help us focus when auditory focus is essential.

​So.  Please, SOMEBODY, explain this insane craze to me because I am completely lost.