9
Mar
2010
Toys, toys, toys, I’m looking for a good time
I knooowwww. How LAME is that title? But I couldn’t help it. Laugh? I almost split my sides. Still snorting as I write. As an aside, residing as I am in Spain, the famous Sabrina song — which you can revisit here — has come to my attention more than a B grade song from the 80s should recently. This is because it has a particularly special place in the heart of many a man in Spain. Hers were the first breasts to be shown on Spanish television, which took place in a Janet Jackson style “accidental” wardrobe malfunction. And you thought Janet was a ground breaker. I challenge you to show me anyone who generated more publicity with less talent than Sabrina. Well, in the pre-internet and reality TV age at least. Anyway, information on the planned malfunction was leaked in advance and teenage boys and men, and I assume not a few woman, tuned in all over the country to capture the moment. We see so much booty every Saturday morning in music clips it’s hard to remember how controversial Sabrina was, even for the rest of us. In an ultra conservative, post-fascism Spain, still catching up from years of isolation, it was a really big deal. So there you are. Sabrina, a cultural icon.
To toys. So with Monkey at only eight months, I realise toys should still be pretty basic. But really, of all the battery operated, jingling, musical, flashing items, I hadn’t expected this. These are two of his favourite items to play with. His spoon, and the lid of his water cup. The clear plastic lid of his bottle and the water jug I use in the bath are also big hits.
He waves these around and bangs them on surfaces (normal, I gather) and he also likes to yell into them (less intuitive, I would have thought). He puts them in or in front of his mouth and screams his lungs out. Not the reaction I was expecting to an inanimate plastic object.
He will also put himself almost upside down in an attempt to play with the strap under his baby chair. If it weren’t for the safety belt he would actually throw himself out of the chair and cause himself serious injury in an attempt to play with this apparently innocuous piece of material. He has a similar passion for pretty much any washing instructions label.
Never fear though, if you thought I was getting off the hook too easily. The grandparents have recently gifted us with a walker thingy that has lots of buttons and noises. Despite Monkey’s apparent preference for the simple things in life, he is quite taken with this relatively high tech contraption. Here it is.
Yes it’s like a mobile dog. When Monkey sits in it, directly under his right elbow (ensuring a continuous rather than intermittent instigation of this particular musical highlight) is a button that plays, How Much Is That Doggy in The Window and, not as I had expected with a mixture of fear and hope, Who Let The Dogs Out, but Oh Susanna.
The only time I have ever, ever heard Oh Susanna is from one toy or another. My own parents were subjected to quite a lot of this particular old favourite. I had a little harp like toy that came with a set of song sheets that you slid behind the strings, showing you which strings to pluck and in what order so that you could play them. Unfortunately for my parents I lost every single song sheet except Oh Susanna. Coincidence that I am now subjected to continuous repetitions of the same song? I think not.
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Great babysitter!
Hmm yes, the strange objects that fascinate them at this age… Mine also had quite a long obsession with clothes labels. One night he actually soothed himself to sleep by sucking the label on the cot bumper (unfortunately one 1 night). My son was so obsessed with mundane (and usually dirty) household objects I gave up on the toy shop and went down to the ironmonger/ferreteria and bought him stuff like a bath plug on a chain and a curly telephone cord, which have been big hits till the present date! I nearly bought him his own tv remote so he’d leave ours alone but figured that wasn’t a good idea as he liked to suck it. He liked to suck everything at this stage, hence buying him a new plug etc. When we bought him a walker he viewed it with great scepticism, as he immediately suspected it as some form of constraint, where we might leave him alone for a few minutes! (He has never approved of not receiving 100% of our attention). The one flashing lights toy he did like was the baby telephone. Unfortunately it had a “safety” feature that reduced the volume to 10% the minute you bought it, (in case the child went deaf – I have never seen a child put one of these things to it’s ear!), but despite even hardly making a noise it was still a hit for a while. Any day now your son will probably start noticing toys with wheels. The cars/wheels obsession I think started around 10-11 months, and never seems to pass! Any cars you buy him will last him a long time, or until he breaks/loses them of course! Soon he will also start getting into nursery rhymes and action rhymes, so you may be enjoying Oh Susanna for a bit longer!