@ossobuco,
Did you play the games, like, "A my name is Alice..." with it? That's what we would do. We would also throw it up in the air and clap an increasing number of times with each throw to see how many times you could clap before dropping the ball. And we could spend considerable time playing those games, both competitively and when alone.
We were easily amused, and quite resourceful in using that ball.