#Maileg wooden mouse house toy series

The options were endless, both vintage and handmade, and my nesting hormones perked up in a way they hadn’t since my first pregnancy. We collected acorn caps on rainy walks for the mice to use as bowls and built them playgrounds, schools, libraries, and other features of our now locked-down city out of blocks.Īfter my daughter went to sleep at night, I’d collapse on the couch, go on Etsy, and browse miniatures. My daughter played with them every day, and their matchbox was soon upgraded to a minimalist dollhouse I ordered from Ikea. The mice, small as they were, filled a large chunk of this time.

#Maileg wooden mouse house toy series

The next morning, my husband returned to the hospital for another series of 12-hour shifts as an emergency physician, leaving my daughter and me alone for an expanse of empty days extending into the new year. I was six months pregnant, heavy and fatigued, my body drained of fight. She spit out the herb-stuffed duck my husband had spent the day roasting.

We spent the day in back-to-back family video calls, all sad substitutes for time together in person, and my daughter melted down with screams of “No, no!” every time she saw the Zoom home screen. I ordered them from a local toy store, and they turned out to be my daughter’s favorite gift. I’d hesitated to buy them because $30 seemed steep for 3-inch mice, but I’m a sucker for Scandinavian aesthetics, and online reviews assured me of their quality craftsmanship.

Made by a Danish toy company called Maileg, these matchbox mice had been following me in advertisements around the internet for months. This pandemic Christmas, I gave my 2-year-old daughter a matchbox that slides open to reveal a pair of toy mice.