Children's Toys

I would first off like to say that I love my children dearly. And I want my kids to have toys to play with. But toys in our house go through an intense selection/screening process. Especially the ones that make noise.... If it is a repetitive noise, is it something that I can tune out? Or possibly completely ignore all together??? Is it something that has volume control or when the toy still functions but the music/sound/bell/whistle can be turned off?? Now I realize that the sounds toys make are part of the fun, and like I said, we don't "dis-allow" toys just because they make noise. But if that noise is something that is going to destroy what little sense and sanity I have left at 3 in the afternoon on Friday, then No. That toy is not coming into our home.

Which brings me to this gem....this maniacal piece of plasticized engineering genius, this destroyer of homes, this harbinger of evil....the popper toy.

I would like to again say, I don't hate all noise making toys. But this toy is pure plastic evil. The irony here is, two days before Christmas, my husband and I actually had a conversation about this toy. About how lucky we were that our kids didn't have one. About how we would never buy this toy for them, because even as children ourselves, this toy annoyed us. About how much we loathed this particular toy.....little did we know that in one of those brightly wrapped packages under our tree, from family far far away (coincidence? I think not) awaited our doom. 

Come Christmas morning, my nearly 1 year old daughter opens her package from one of "the grandparents" and behold! My husband's face went white. All I could do was laugh. The dreaded popper had entered our home, and there was no undoing it now.

Its now a few weeks after Christmas. The popper is still here. But my daughter doesn't even realize that she has this toy at her disposal. (Oh good you say? No, no it gets much much worse) My daughter doesn't get the chance to play with this toy. Now mind you, she's walking now. And she could probably, in a good moment, make this thing pop a few times a minute. That would be a tolerable level of noise. I could handle that. What I can't handle is my 4 year old son running through the house with this toy, chasing the dog, cat, baby, pretty much anything that will run away. So instead of a "pop pop pop" from time to time, it sounds like an automatic machine gun in a WWII movie. This is enhanced by the squeals of joy from my son and doubled by the barking of terror from our dog, who at these moments I'm sure thinks that his number is up, his time is over, he's taking fire and can't get away! And of course, naturally, my son ONLY wants to play this running/ squealing/ popping game when the baby JUST went to sleep. Perfect, right? I think Murphy has taken up permanent residence in our home.

I have no plans to remove this toy, though my husband has thought up some very clever ways to bring this toy to its demise. As much as it irritates me, I just can't bring myself to get rid of it....yet. That doesn't mean its a free for all, this toy is brought out when I know I can handle what will happen next. That being said, this popper is currently hidden in the depths of my closet today, and possibly the rest of this week. I don't know who invented this toy, but whoever they are, they are/were a true evil genius.

 So I do want to say thank you to the grandparents who bought this toy for our children. Please know that it does bring them INTENSE joy and they are so happy when they play with it. And I know this was the reason you purchased it for them. But I also know you, and I know you too have a mischievous side, and I'm sure it brought you joy when you thought of the nerves being frayed by this popper. So just remember this; Thank you for the toy, Karma is a bitch, you taught me everything I know about pranks, and I love you.