Whatever Happened To Giving a Kid a Set of Blocks?

There's really no way to preface this, so I'll just let you take it in for yourself.




Did you watch that closely?  Did you see the part where they fed the dog a treat? And then the dog pooped it out? 


Let me get this straight.   This is a toy puppy that walks on a leash and sits up and begs.  You can pet it and love it and call it George.  But that just wasn't enough.  It needed just one more thing - something that made it stand out from the crowd on that toy shelf awash with brightly colored gems.  It was decided that this toy's je ne sais quoi was that it was capable of POOPING?!  The mind reels.

You'd think this toy would be an anomaly but, oh no.  The other day I ran across this next thing in my own house.  It came with a toy rocket ship that Liam got for his birthday one year.  It has the rocket, a couple of astronauts, a space buggy, and their pet dog - presumably named Astro.

Here's Astro:

And here's Astro's butt:

Notice anything?

We've had this thing in the house for almost 2 years.  Lately Jamie has loved playing with this toy set.  In fact, we got him the Martian Moon Base that goes with the stupid rocket for Christmas.  Astro and his special appendage have been hanging around a lot and I noticed him sitting on the end table the other day; for the first time, I really looked at him.  

That's when I noticed his rear end.  I took it to Scot and said "Does this look like anythi-" and he cut in "Yes.  Yes, it does.  I noticed that a while back."

Hey kids, how 'bout we pull out those blocks and build Astro a kennel?  We'll stick him in there with his Rescue Pet Pooping Pal for some company.

Operation Toy Donation

(Sorry for the break in the blogging.  First it was because the year was all normal and boring with nothing to write about and then it was because everyone got sick.)

We have a lot of toys in this house.  I mean a lot.  There are bins in the game room, bins in Liam's room, a small pile in Jamie's room, a crap ton in the family room, and at least 4 or 5 large bins worth in storage in the basement.  Each Christmas and birthday bring more.  I have stuff stashed away that Liam has outgrown waiting on Jamie to grow into.  I have stuff that's too young for both the kids.  The kids can't play with everything they have.  It's ridiculous.

As a result of this, it has been my plan for some time to divest the house of the excess.  If the kids can't play with it and I'm reduced to storing it, there has GOT to be a place where these things can be used.  I asked Twitter.  I asked Facebook.  I got no advice.  So, I asked my daycare a couple of weeks ago if they needed or wanted toys and they enthusiastically said yes.  Finally!  A place to get rid of stuff cluttering up my house!

Then, in the course of everyone in the house being sick but the kids being a lot less sick than the adults, they completely emptied all the toy bins and the toy box causing a toy tornado that littered the family room with toys long forgotten.  The number of fast food meal toys was really shocking - some of them predated Jamie's existence.

Yesterday I was finally feeling somewhat human and I couldn't stand the filth anymore so I started cleaning.  While Liam was at school and Jamie was napping, I attacked the family room.  I separated stuff out into toys to throw away (every. single. Burger King toy I could lay my hands on), toys to donate, and toys to keep.

I grabbed a big box left over from Christmas to put the toys to donate into and a trash bag to throw the crap toys into.

I filled the box and had to get another.

I filled the kitchen sized trash bag half full with BK toys alone.  Then I started shoving actual trash in there and filled it up.

I cleaned up the rest of the stuff to keep and stacked it neatly in the toy corner of the family room.  Then I took the toys to be donated down to my car and put them in my trunk so the kids wouldn't see them and freak out.  It filled half my trunk.  When Jamie goes to daycare on Wednesday, I'll deliver the load.

I threw the garbage bag of BK toys into the trash can in the garage to hide that.

The scary part?  This was only the family room.  I haven't touched either of the boys' rooms or the game room or the stored toys.  I know I have at least one large bin full of baby toys that needs to go.

There's another scary part to this tale.  When I finished cleaning up the family room, I looked at the neatly stacked pile of toys and it was just as large as it had been before I cleaned things out.  The only difference was that there were different toys in the pile.

It's no wonder I have trouble keeping this house clean.

The Men In White Coats Are Considering A Visit.

I'm onto you.

Yes, you over there. The company that makes childrens toys. That's right. I'm onto you.

You hold your focus groups and your brainstorming sessions and talk to all the experts in the field of child development and then you design toys around the resulting data. But, I'm onto you. You're not doing this to further the intellectual development of my children.

You're doing it to torture me. It's all a secret plot to drive me insane.

If I'm not spending my days listening to the banjo pluckings of the Leapfrog Fridge Farm I'm listening to Farmer John sing "Old MacDonald" while driving his tractor. You gift me with the insane giggling of the Drop and Roar Dinosaur or the multiple musical instruments and songs included in the LeapFrog Learn and Grove Musical Table. Even the stuffed animals talk sometimes!

Everything makes a noise, sings a song, or otherwise noisily rewards my child for interacting with it. He finds it so addictive that he can't stop pressing those buttons to make those noises. Over and over again I hear the same things.

You want me to be a blibbering idiot by the time the kid is 5, don't you? Yes, I thought so, too.

He has become so enamored of your creations that when he doesn't have buttons to push for musical accompaniment to his day he looks lost and bereft. Constant input is all he knows. Ask the kid to sit still and read a book and he needs 87 other things going on in the background in order to do it.

Eventually my brain is going to seep out of my ears to the strains of "Skip To My Lou." It's running away, really, looking for a better home that treats it well and doesn't abuse it. I urge it to look for a home without small children. One day it may come back to me but I fear that I will not remember how to use it by then.

The songs and noises meet me in my dreams. They will not go away. And if I have to listen to "Farmer in the Dell" one more time the Fridge Farm is going to get dropped in the toilet.