Toys That Should Not Be
L has a number of disturbing things in his room and immediate surroundings. Nothing dangerous, mind you, but things that make the voices get all antsy in my head. They tell me to go out and kill, I tell you.
Other parents know this, but when you're subjected to 500 toys that make noise on a daily basis, you get to know which ones are the most annoying or which ones are most likely to be traded away to other unsuspecting parents.
This post was brought on because as part of L's ongoing miraculous cognitive development, he's started connecting what he sees on Sesame Street with some things in his room. Namely, the huge-ass frightening Elmo and Cookie Monster dolls that one of our friends gave to him before he was born.
Yes, my son has started liking Elmo.
This isn't so bad, considering. If he had started liking Barney -- I refuse to have any Barney within 50 feet of the house -- I would've had to shoot myself. If Teletubbies, with their weird pseudo-Marxist world where everything is provided for, with life-size toasters, and a Big Brother-ish baby sun that frightens the bejeezus out of me, I think I might've had to fortify my tea with mushrooms just so it would all make sense.
So all things considered, Elmo and his high-pitched voice, as well as his computer-generated surreal home which must exist only in his insane red head, are tolerable. (Doesn't that picture look a little... Van Gogh/Jacob's Ladder to you? And what do you think Elmo's drawing? Considering he's colored the rest of his room in red crayon, I figure it's got to be a dead rabbit.)
But so many things we have are intolerable -- and, worse yet, L loves them with all his little heart.
So many disturbing toys, so little time:
This little nightmare of a toy came at us straight from a white elephant party, of all places, given to us by our (soon to be former) friend Doug. This is apparently a lame American substitute for the Brit Teletubbies, and like most things that get transplanted from elsewhere over to these shores, in the process of becoming American, it got... obese. Either that, or the thing is all purple elephantitis scrotum. Furthermore, if you punch it in the stomach (or its distended balls) it makes a series of mostly incomprehensible, disturbing noises including a bit of flatulence. ("Boobah -- it's like Teletubbies, except it farts.") L's eyes light up and he laughs whenever he sees it in his crib, which makes me die a little inside, each time. I hate you, Doug.
Although Mer has talked at length about the depth of evil that is Baby Tad, she hasn't really illustrated Tad's demonic nature fully enough, I think. Tad introduces himself innocently enough, even if he's a little annoying, and then he gets a little more annoying, and then he gets downright creepy. The hell of it is that Tad is definitely one of L's favorite things -- and, although still creepy, is a godsend at bedtime. However, Tad's true mission straight from Satan becomes apparent once his batteries become weak. I've tried to approximate it with various effects, but the effect gets all HAL 9000 on your ass.
My mother gave L this toy for Christmas. As you might suspect from looking at it with all the buttons and characters on the bus, this would be one of the most annoying toys we have -- which would automatically make it one of L's favorites. Every button does something annoying, even the letters. It will just sit there, being annoying, teaching your child questionable morals ("...into traffic! No one will miss them!"), until it's time to learn about making friends with urine (told to you, of course, by the most annoying character on the bus). Then it's time to sing and sing and sing, until you're singing it in your sleep or hitting yourself in the head with a claw hammer, like the Happy Happy Joy Joy song. If that weren't insane enough, imagine hearing these jokes each and every single day of your life.
The bus spends most of its life thankfully being switched off.
This is another toy L got for Christmas; you're supposed to hit it, and there are various settings so that you can either tap out the alphabet, numbers, music, or various Simon Says-like rhythms. In theory, this'd be a great toy that wouldn't be so grating to listen to in the scheme of things, but the sound recordings on the drum are desperately trying to convince you their product is fun, teaching my son that hitting things is fun, engaging in off-key aural abuse, getting weirdly sexual all of a sudden, and branding my son egregiously early in ways I don't appreciate.
Now, you'd think that a whimsical picture of L on his bike would indicate that he had an engaging toy that not only would teach him how to pull himself up on his feet and propel himself along, but would also be an island of sanity for Mommy and Daddy. Not so. Imagine, for example, that a couple of clowns, just out of clown college, decided to give up the clown life of pies and honker noses for a life of being hot club DJs in San Francisco. While hopped up on meth, they mix together what they think is the next club anthem for the glowstick set. Next, imagine the two songs they came up with played in succession on L's beloved trike. Then imagine these songs played whenever you press anything on the trike, move the trike, kick it across the room in the middle of the night, look at it the wrong way, curse at it, or beg, beg, beg it to stop. It just ignores you in its pitiless machine way, and plays its clown techno over and over and over again.
L will no doubt get more annoying toys -- hopefully, none more annoying than these. I do this as a public service; this insanity must be shared so that others don't repeat our mistakes. (Or, at least, when there is no risk any more of anyone playing with these toys again -- baby #2 or anyone else -- there will be a mighty spectacular accident of some kind.)
(See also: look at the unit on that bear!)
(See also: Why Daddy Drinks.)