On Toys

Seriously, our home is overrun with toys. We may need to buy the house next door and let the kids and the toys have this one since they have taken over anyway. I have said in the past that the house looks like FAO Schwartz hemorrhaged it's overstock in our direction but I think maybe it is more apt to say that we are the island of mismatched toys. There is some bizarre toy tractor beam in operation here. We attract animals that talk. Cars that talk. Tools that talk. Everything talks, sings, beeps or squawks. Plastic, wood, plush. You name it, we've probably got it. Organizing toy parts to find their original mates is an all day job. Trying to keep toys in the kids' room or the toyloft or the toy baskets in the living room is futile. They migrate. I find toy screwdrivers in my bed. I find blocks and robots in the bathroom. If you sit on the couch there is a great possibility that you will find a sharp toy stuck in your rear. We use it as a primitive sort of burglar alarm. If anyone tries to sneak around my house in the dead of night they will trip over toy golf clubs, bump into singing vacuum cleaners and break an ankle on a rattle ball as they try to escape. Believe me? Well, that's my story and I am sticking to it!

I have noticed that some of our toys seem just a tad possessed. I think they just might be designed to make me question my sanity, drive me batty or scare years off of my life (just in case my kids don't have that angle covered already). We have an RC car that moves by itself and I am the only one who has ever seen this phenomenon. I spent an hour staring at it one night after two such episodes. Then it went into a box under a bed somewhere. I will probably find it in the middle of the living room some morning like Christine. And then it will be Goodwill-bound, believe me! Once we had a giggling teether that would bust out laughing without any provocation. That sucker found it's way out of the kids' room (after it was bumped accidentally and woke up a sleeping child) to the loft where it had a brief stay - until it was triggered by a breeze at 2am at which point it found a new home in the garage. A few days later I gave up and tossed it in the trash only to have the pee scared out of me on trash day when the garbage can laughed maniacally. I have visions of archaeologists in the future uncovering this thing (having been unnaturally preserved surrounded by all of those dirty diapers) and fleeing in abject terror when it giggles at them. It never felt so good to get rid of a toy! My most recent fright came at about 3 am when a baseball toy in the loft whose batteries are apparently on the way out decided to shout "Going, going, gone! It's outta here!" I was standing at the end of the bed panting, heart pounding, and palms sweating before I finally figured out that we were not under siege. Now I have to make a sweep of every play area before bed each night to make sure the switches are in the off position to avoid being jerked from sleep by someTHING yelling "Hello baseball fans!" or singing "The wheels on the bus go round and round..." Definitely the stuff of nightmares!

The funny thing about all these toys is that the kids don't particularly like to play with them. They might hold their attention for 5 minutes, 10 if I am lucky. My children would prefer to play in the toilet. Squeeze bottles and cotton balls are a local favorite. Sticks, strings, fuzz and Kleenex. The girl likes anything pokey or chokey. The boy likes things that hurt when thrown. (He has good aim so he gets the cotton balls.) The girl can decimate a roll of toilet paper in just under 1 minute and spread it around the house in less than 4. The boy will chase ancient cat all over the house and pick him up and drop him and pick him up and try to throw him and pick him up and try to squash him into the couch and pick him up and try to put him on the table and pick him up and try to go down the stairs with him...and I wondered why ancient cat's favorite game to play was hide the poop. Ha. My kids like pens. They look with disdain at the crayons and reach for the Sharpies. Write on, wipe off? That is for babies, novices and trainees. They want the real deal - permanent ink, hallucination inducing fumes, chemical flavor. They want them NOW and they want them in the living room. They want them to scribble on the uninteresting toys that talk. AH-HA! At last the answer to why we buy the toys! I am off to spread the word...