New Mummy Blog: The Worst Things I've Bought For My Kids
I love buying things for my kids. But, boy, have I (and others) made some serious mistakes. Here are my top five things I wish my kids had never received. Or even heard of. Because now they’ve got them, we’re stuck with them. At least until the next big mistake.
Bath crayons
They seemed like such a genius idea. Washable, colourful crayons the kids could use to scribble on the bath tiles; crafty and creative but totally containable and easy to clean. My kind of messy play.
The reality: they’re murder to clean, will never, ever come off the grouting no matter how hard I scrub, and are giving the kids the message that it’s okay to draw on the walls. Not so clever after all.
Novelty nightwear
My Frozen-obsessed toddler has an Elsa nightdress that she adores. The problem is that it came with a long, sparkly gauze cape that velcroes onto the shoulders. She, naturally, is adamant that the cape stays on for bedtime. I, on the other hand, have images of suffocation or strangulation and have to embark on a tug of war of both will and Velcro to remove the cape before she goes to sleep.
Then there’s her collection of dress up outfits: Elsa, Ariel, Sofia the First, a Halloween pumpkin witch, her fairy wings. Each one more synthetic and flammable than the one before.
[Copyright: Yahoo/Claire Sparks]
Snow globes
There was the teeny tiny snow globe, perfectly child sized, complete with the teeny tiny and ever so cute bunny enclosed in glass. I guess the toddler really wanted to get her hands on that bunny because it wasn’t very long at all before the glass was smashed. Less than ten minutes, in fact.
And then there’s the enormous and clunky, potentially lethal Frozen snow globe wand that Granny bought her for Christmas. It’s so heavy it could probably knock me out cold with one blow, never mind the baby, who often gets precariously close when the toddler is acting out Let It Go.
The offending wand [Copyright: Yahoo/Claire Sparks]
Age inappropriate toys
Toy manufacturers seem to use Not Suitable For Children Under 36 Months as a default rule. While of course they must safeguard themselves and our children from tiny pieces and sharp edges, and three seems as good an age as any, they often take this far too far.
Like the birthday card for a two-year-old that I bought, with a giant ‘2’ and a pop up dinosaur on the front. No mistaking the age this card was appropriate for, it was there in bright, bold green. Until I opened it to find a slip of paper with that old familiar phrase - Not Suitable For Children Under 36 Months - printed on it. What were they afraid could happen; a paper cut?
It’s things like this that mean I often ignore the age guidelines to a certain extent. I buy my two-year-old those three and over toys and my just-one-year-old toys that are for 18 months plus. The difference is only a matter of months, and the range of toys so much better.
But we have a family member who flouts the age guidance completely. It doesn’t matter if he’s buying toys, clothes or books. A dumper truck that could poke the baby’s eyes out, age two jeans for his first birthday, a copy of the Jungle Book that the baby’s not going to read for years.
He has kids of his own, so why doesn’t he realise these gifts, as kind as they are, will simply end up at the back of a cupboards, forgotten until it’s too late to use them.
Anything glittery
Our house is full of glittery toys, glittery clothes, glittery hair clips, glittery stickers. The problem with glitter is that it gets everywhere. It’s on every surface, every carpet and everybody. It doesn’t matter how often I clean - the house or us - the toddler is close behind sprinkling her magical stardust everywhere she goes.
It is everywhere, but its favourite place is my husband’s beard. It takes Pimp My Beard to a whole new level. And he looks especially fetching when heading out the door for a client meeting looking like an extra from Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow.
