No More Toys

Well, yes this blog has kind of lost impetus. While I love posting up the ideas my wife and I come up with to entertain out tot, I feel there are so many other people also putting their’s up and what makes mine so special.

I suppose it is just a bit of an identity crisis really, that and work is hectic at the moment and time off is rare….i know most parents experience this, but bringing up kids and working full time is hard work.

Your life does fall into a routine of sorts – every day becomes a fairly well timed event, margin for error is minimal and god forbid you think you’ll put the washing up off for a day, because let me tell you, you will have no more time tomorrow to sort it out. So really, you just get on with it.

Be Careful

I just noticed the rather macabre video from the DfT about “The Boy Who Didn’t Look for a Safe Place To Cross” (yes, pithy little title that one) on Jo Beaufoix’s blog and it reminded me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon…..If I remember correctly, the spaghetti sauce is “patented Calvin gore-o-gram” or somesuch :).
Maybe the next campaign they whip up to scare the bejesus out of little children could include a little spag bol in the advert…..

Be Careful Or Be Roadkill

In a strange way, though, the little film on Jo’s blog reminds me of Graveyard Mountain Home, an album by Kevin Moore, aka Chroma Key, which he wrote to accompany a film called Age 13 played at half speed…..yeah musicians are a strange lot eh? Just ask Ashley Morgan and his whole micropatronage gig (and when do we get to hear some samples of the album? 🙂 ).

Age 13, by the way, is in the public domain…..
part 1
part 2
I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the educational value of what must be one of the most bizarre plot lines in the world.

See, it’s not all about cheap toys for children over here….sometimes we break away from the relentless play time and have some edumacational value toboot!

Three cheap, homemade toy ideas

Old curtain rings
We were clearing out the shed…and I found a bagful of wooden curtain rings. Looks like a bagful of new, exciting dangly things I can attach to the pram with a string, says I to myself. (Pram danglers lose their allure quite quickly. An on-the-ball mum would revise and replace twice a week.) Presto, once rinsed and repeated, a dangly chain of ringy things to chew and wave and jingle…

Does her cot hang low?
Do things dangle to and fro? Have you tied them with a knot? Have you tied them with a bow? I refer to the base of the side bars. There’s no reason your baby’s room should be interesting only if she’s IN her cot. Attach anything with a hole in it or hook on it to the base of the side bars, and she can explore them while you change her nappy (once you have given up changing your little wriggler on the cot-top changer, that is) or simply while crawling around her room. Ours has some soft toy animals repurposed from her baby playgym, some Sticklebricks, some buggybooks, a ball…

Surprise jars
Use any sturdy, transparent, screw-lid container, and fill with something visually interesting. Beads, buttons, ribbons, a Duplo man, a dried flower…then (if the contents are potentially fatal to your twisty-fingered child), stick the lid on forever by squirting glue into the threads before screwing it on tight. Another good idea is to part-fill with water, and add a squeeze of Fairy liquid. Shaking it will cause chortle-inducing froth that slowly settles. For opaque containers, fill with objects that rattle, such as dried chickpeas, rice, and so on. (The Body Shop body butter containers are good for these.)

What “what to expect” will never tell you about co-sleeping

That at 4am when your little one is cold, you will end up bringing her into your bed. She will stretch out luxuriously between you and your wife, and you will end up on a sliver of bed so small, that a tightrope walker would think twice about crossing.

Cunning

I’m not sure what it is about being a baby that makes them develop cunning so early. Perhaps it’s that they have no concept of what is and what isn’t their’s. Witness my little one. She loves lights. They are, to her, completely magical. She gazes on them in awe, smiling with a half opened mouth. She also loves my mobile phone. Partly because when you push a button the screen lights up. Partly because it’s plastic and so, nice to chew when her gums are itchy. And partly, no doubt, because my screen features a lovely little picture of her*, so I imagine it must be fun to gaze upon this magical miniature mirror.

Anyway, t’other day, she snuck up on me and snaffled my mobile while I was making a few notes. Being a good father, I let her play with it for a while and then needed to make a call. I point at my phone and say “Please give daddy his mobile” (never too young to teach them manners I say). Actually, I said “mmmmba”. Because that’s what my daughter says when she points at something that she wants to play with that I’m holding.

Now, I know she understands me. I see her look me in the eyes, her tongue sticks out a little in concentration. She looks at the mobile. Then she looks around. I can see her thinking. And this is the best part. She picks up a different toy – a little wooden block, and offers it to me saying “here daddy, is this what you want?”, and she bats her eyelids. Actually, she say “ba” ’cause she’s only 13 months old.

How did she learn this? How did she learn to try and distract me so she can continue to play with what she really wants to play with? I didn’t teach her this, that’s for sure. Maybe her mother did. Women are, after all, cunning.

Now of course, I could wade in and take my phone by force. That would work…..but really, I see only one real cunning solution to me getting my phone back. Buy two new phones. Once she has a phone in each hand, there will be one left over for me to use.

*(yup, it’s true, as a new father, you will also remove the pictures of scantily clad women that once adorned your mobile’s screen in favour of your little one’s smiling face)

Welcome, come on in, sit down, bring your kids I don’t mind

So this used to be cheap toys for kids, but my wife didn’t like the name – she prefers cheap toys for children because of the alliteration. So here we are – a new home……I’ll try and import my posts, but if I don’t manage, check out cheap toys for kids

Do toys grow on trees daddy?

Well, my little daughter (who really phrased this question as a mmmmmbaaaaa, ’cause she’s only 1 and can’t speak yet), normally, toys do not grow on trees. They grow in shops called Mothercare and ELC and on the internet in virtual shopping malls. Then they get delivered to us in dehydrated form and we add water by drooling over their magnificence for a while and hey presto, new toys.

Except today, because today, your mother, bless her, brought home from your walk several pine cones. Now you wouldn’t think pine cones would be a good tot toy would you? I mean, there isn’t much to recommend them. At least not according to the baby Einstein promo DVD we watched. After all, pine cones are not brightly coloured. Nor do they make much of a sound when shaken. And they certainly do not pop into your DVD player and mesmerise your little darling for hours on end while you get on with parent stuff. On the other hand, pine cones are brown, by and large, and have strange stick out parts to them.And let me tell you, the amount of fun we had picking them up off the playmat and placing them on the bench in the garden and then climbing up onto the bench (with a boost from dad) and then placing them on the table in a very tot-determined way and then finally throwing them onto the ground and starting the cycle all over again is absolutely astounding. Who would have thought something so cheap…..something so free in fact, would entertain my little thing for so long.

But she had loads of fun. Even when dad rather meanly interrupted our game by half-inching a few pine cones just as we stacked them ever so carefully on the bench. Well there was nothing for it but to point at them in dad’s hand…..and demand them back. Whereupon they were restored to their rightful place on the bench before we asked for a little boost up (”mmmmmbbbbbbaaaaa?”) so we could continue the little happy triumvirate of pine cone destinations. Heck we played all the way till lunch, after which we were preeeeeety tired and needed an afternoon nap. Luckily, since pine cones happily sit in the garden at various heights while looking rather like garden decorations debonairly scattered, there was no toy clean up while she slept and dad got a nap as well 🙂

Why are you eating toys for breakfast daddy?

Well, today proved the point that kids prefer the boxes to the toys in ‘em. Well, not entirely, ’cause my little snot bucket didn’t get the toy inside this box. Mainly because the toy was my breakfast! Awwwww, bad dad, why didn’t you share you ask? Ptha I say. I did. Well, in fact I made her her own bowl full of tasty porridge and chopped dates and raising and apple bits. And her’s was all nice and warm. Mine was a cold bowl of Dorset cereal. Not that there’s anything wrong with the cereal, but no sooner had I finished the hectic spooning of porridge into my tot’s mouth – you know the way it goes – spoonful in…..”yes” cries dad in victory……tot looks around, thoughtfully chewing, wondering what to point at next…..points….utters her syllabul of the day “mmmmbbbbbbaaaaa”……dad looks around frantically trying to figure out what tot is pointing at…..is it different food? is it a different to? is it another utensil? is it her blankie? is it….oh what could it be? tot looks more and more peaved and syllabuls get louder…..mouth refuses to open for anymore food…..on hunger strike till dad figures it out. C’mon dad….there’s only a limited number of things in the bloody kitchen……just start bringing them to her one at a time…..my tot though would be the one who wants dad’s hot cup of coffee….can’t have that pumpkin it is hot and it will burn you…and besides you have enough energy without caffeine coursing through your tiny circulatory system…..oh bloody hell, she isn’t giving up…mouth still firmly closed to more food, hand batting spoon away. dad hides coffee, distracts tot with best silly face and peekaboo game….phew….crisis over. okay. let’s concentrate…..eating now…..spoon……spooon…..spoooooon…….spooooooon……last one….big mouth…..spooooooooon…..phew. job’s a good ‘un. she ate her breakies. dad’s turn. no, not yet. mop tot face. pull her out of high chair….strip off bib….get tot food all over freshly washed t-shirt and jeans….oh Fu….erm i mean damn (none of that language in front of the kids please). Phew. put tot in front of magnetic fridge gears, turn to kitchen counter, open box of cereal……”MMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAA”……whaaaaa….geeeeez you scared me half to death pumpkin, what is it? Oh. you want dad’s cereal? still hungry? well, it is organic….suppose it’s okay for you…..spoon deftly batted away (yeah right they have no fine motor control)…..nope not the cereal.

“MMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”. Oh. The box?, you want the box…….”mmmbaaaa” grab the plastic bag of wholesome grains and fruity fruit from inside the lovely”mmmbaaaa” purple box…”mmmbaaaa” scatters cereal everywhere “mmmbaaaa”…clean up later……”mmbaaaa mmmmbaaaaa mmmmbbbbaaa”…hand to tot. Little tongue sticks out in concentration……”hoooooooo” cheerful squeaks….colourful new toy (commonly know as recyclable cardboard) passes tot approval test….

Now, where’s my coffee…..?
And what shall we play with for lunch?

Breakfast or toy, you decide

What they don’t tell you about car seats

So, my 13 month old has finally outgrow her group 0 car seat. Yeah yeah, big milestone in a parent’s life, not least because you have to splash out on a new car seat. So off you go, shopping away at all the usual stores. Here’s something they don’t tell you about car seats when you buy your all singing all dancing isofix group 0 infant carryer……….You can’t use that isofix base for the next size up car seat.

See, one of the reasons people buy isofix seats with isofix bases (apart from the touted safety enhancements) is that, in theory, if you have the isofix base, any isofix seat fits into it. Well, technically, that’s true, but only within the group. So you get a group 0 with isofix, other group 0 seats might fit in your isofix base. But now you have to move to a group 1 seat. Hey, I got an isofix base already……..O no you don’t, not for a group 1 seat.

grrrrrrrrrr. Marketing companies never give you the full picture do they? I bet a lot of parents get burned like we did.

Anyhoo….anyone want to buy a group 0 isofix base? I got one going cheap.

Cheap shape sorting toy

Well, I really meant to kick this blog off a little bit quicker, but what with work and tot care, things got a little out of hand. So, let’s try again. Cheap toys for kids. Where do we start? Well, I would start with introducing myself and my daughter, but maybe I’ll leave that for another day and climb right in with a cheap toy.

Cookie Cutters in Sock Sorter Toy

Behold the image. Cookie Cutters in a Sock Sorter. Yep, it doesn’t get much cheaper than this. My wife likes to keep her sock drawer pretty tidy, so long ago, when we visited one of those one pound stores, we stocked up on slighly neon pink sock sorters. My wife found she had more than enough sock sorters to fill her drawer with socks….and t-shirts…..and other wifely sorts of things…..LIKE HAIRBANDS you sicko you. ptha. Anyhoo, so my wife gladly donated a sock sorter to our daughter for her to play with. Thing is, a sock sorter ain’t much fun for a little one. It doesn’t really do anything once you get past the colourfullness. Which is sometimes enough to be a toy, believe me, but this one needed a little pizaz…something extra….behold the cookie cutters….this little set came free with a tesco delivery or something. They aren’t particularly sturdy, and we aren’t really a cookie bakery here. But there they were, sitting quietly on the kitchen counter when my daughter spied them, pointed at them and said “Gimme!!!”. Well actually, she said “MMBBBAAAA” which is all she can really say because she is only one. Next thing you know, the cookie cutters are being frantically sorted in and out of the various empty sock compartments and voila, a new toy is born!

So form my perspective, this toy is great. The plastic sock sorter was a job lot and probably cost us 90pence or so. The cookie cutters….free…..great cheap toy for kids if you ask me. Suits a frugal dad. Does it suit a playful tot? Well, so far, she has kept herself very entertained with it for a good 6 and a half minutes today…..putting red cutters into pink sock compartments, taking them out, moving them into another compartment. As if searching for the perfect symetry…the perfect compartment for each cookie cutter and she is smiling and playing and babbling a little, and that’s all that counts!