A frugal life is an easy life!

Sprog2 has turned 16 months old today, developing all the time, something happened just now, that made me wonder if I should change direction in her development.

We have a "pen" for her, other names include "baby prison" "baby play area" etc, you get the idea.
It is now the only place in the house where she can be left whilst something is done, wether it's the hoovering, washing up, or just for a well earned cuppa.
All attempts at opening the gate to the baby hexagon, have failed, from brute force and smashing it with a pan (I let her have it to pretend to cook her farm animals) to the more subtle attempts, such as swinging off it like a monkey.
It's the last real barrier to her being 100% free to roam the house.

Today she picked up my van keys, just one big key with a little key for the fuel cap attached to it.
In an instant, she walked over to her baby pen gate, inserting the small shiney key into the join of the gate fastening!
Wedging it in the join she attempted to turn the key to release the gate!

Combine this, with her ability to hold a pen properly and scribble only only on paper for the past month, her success at recognising most of the basic colours and open zips, clasps, bags and press studs.
Recognising the english flag then mimicking a barmy army song (from the cricket) is another favourite, as well as shouting "Goal!" whenever football scores are on the television, or watching a game is not bad for a baby of her age I think.

I am wondering if I should change direction as regards her development?
We practise words every week, she can say keys, tree, fish, etc and recognises them on the television and pictures. She knows where to find a starfish in her books and can place all the shapes in her shape ball, of varying colours and sizes from square to hexagon.
Customary greetings and saying goodbye have been mastered for a few months now, she can shout sprog1's name when he's upstairs. Recognising people isn't a problem either.

We don't have a "routine" as such, we eat when we are hungry, we sleep when we rub eyes, we play in between. We dance to music often and recognising songs from disney films is helping with general words, like doing the actions to "let's go fly a kite" from mary poppins.
I've introduced a couple of basic books so far, but using these whilst she's free to roam is proving hazardous, as the temptation to turn pages is far more attractive than listening to me droning on.
Still, that said, pictures are proving popular, thanks to pingu on BBC2 every morning and a picture of a penguin drawn for me by a good friend being blue tacked up on my desk, for example.

My dilemma is, where to go from here?
Do I continue with the hands on approach, or go towards books?
The problem is with books, these cannot be left with sprog2, turning pages in excitement means ripping. I am tempted to go with a bit of both, but any things you can suggest would be helpful.