I think it’s fair to say there are a lot of toys that annoy me. Maybe it’s because I have a basement full of toys no one plays with. The train set and a few other things manage to get some love, but for the most part it all looks like junk to me. I don’t even know how it happened. My kids get very few birthday presents and I’m certain at least a couple of my kids have never stepped foot in a toy store. And still, my house looks like it had a special delivery from the Island of Misfit Toys.
And then there are toys my kids don’t even own that I find annoying, like the pint-sized stationary bike I recently saw. Ok, it was weird enough to imagine my kids on a bike that doesn’t go anywhere, but then I noticed that pedaling the bike is what makes the TV work – as kid pedals, TV is powered.
It inspired a brilliant and original thought - how about TURNING THE TV OFF AND GETTING YOUR BUTT OUTSIDE ONTO A REAL BIKE AND RIDING AROUND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD? I know, crazy talk, right?
Sure, sometimes it’s rainy and a bit of an indoor day, but on those days can’t the kids just watch a bit of TV without having to work for it? I just can’t imagine my kids being so inactive in their daily lives that they would “need” exercise equipment. Although some parents might worry it’s harder for kids to be active in winter, I find that appropriately dressed children get plenty of exercise having snowball fights, building snow forts, tobogganing, making snow angels, playing road hockey, hiking through a winter wonderland, the list goes on and on.
Another annoying toy is the mini-car for kids that works remarkably like a real car — you know the kind grandparents like to sneak under the Christmas tree for bonus points? While it looks like loads of fun, it doesn’t appear to require any creativity or exercise. I do place value on toys being “just fun”, but have you checked out the price of those things? I don’t place that much value on fun. I could pay hockey registration and equipment fees for a year or cover three terms of ballet lessons or even better, all six of my kids could do several years of Scouts for the cost of one of them. As such, I’m happy allocating my kids’ luxury vehicle money elsewhere and letting them ride their bikes.
What are your top annoying toys? Are they the noisy ones that your childless friends hand over to your kids while snickering behind your back? Or is Grandma indulging your kids with stuff that drives you crazy?
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