For Christmas, my parents gave Penelope & each of her cousins a Melissa & Doug alphabet set. I love it. The primary colors, hidden illustrations  & simple wood letters are adorable! However, Penelope had a really hard time playing with it. Maybe she's a little young for it, or maybe I just got so annoyed at her chewing & throwing the letters around. Every time we played with the alphabet it was more like a game of 52 card pick up. And I was always the one picking up. It really is a shame when you have such high hopes for a toy & it completely backfires. For the last little bit I've been thinking that perhaps Penelope & I could get more use out of the letters if they were magnets. Last night I picked up a roll of magnetic stripping & spent over an hour sticking little magnets to the backs of each letter. I was really excited to see Penelope's reaction in the morning. Her reaction wasn't so awesome. She kept screaming "I DON'T LIKE IT!" While she picked off every magnet of each letter she got her hands on. It took me another hour to clean up & glue the magnets back on; this time Penelope was "helping". Now she likes them. I think. I'm pretty sure she'll have fun playing around with the letters now. If not, I definitely will.