I’ve got 99 kinds of toys… but what you’ve got isn’t one

SassyB - 22 Jun 17

It’s 6.35am. Half of the kitchen is given over to super-sized, foam play mats, each one buried beneath a sea of Mega Bloks, Duplo, dolls, cars and musical instruments. The kettle is on the boil for the third time and the washing machine whirs in the background.

It looks like the beginning of a fun morning in a busy household…

No. No, it is not. Because in the time we’ve been up, most of the toys have been taken out of the toy box and played with. Plastic crap collides with sensory toys, and beautiful wooden playthings have been thrown mindlessly aside in a long-forgotten play tent. Even the much-loved enormous rubber cow lays discarded near the kitchen table, seemingly never to be bounced on again. Apparently, they’ve fulfilled their purpose for the day.

Because although my child has ALL OF THE TOYS, not one of them can match up to the wondrous, magical objects (see, mundane domestic items) that the kitchen contains. ANYTHING in or around this room is a better option to the many, many toys we’ve bought and been given over the 15 months my child has been alive.

I wouldn’t normally mind. Usually I’m right there on the play mats, swimming in the sea, finding new gems to (re)discover and make a game from but today I’ve been up since 5.45am and figured the only benefit of having such an early riser for a child is a chance to Get. Shit. Done.

But, of course, children always want whatever you’re holding/eating/cleaning and so it is that at 6.35am we’re facing each other down, him whinging because he wants the hob cleaner, me whinging that “It’s not even 7am yet” and neither of us having a particularly fun time of anything.

So, for all the mums-to-be about to excitedly embark on a BeatBo buying spree and the new dads looking forward to buying their little one (ahem, themselves) their first train track, let me save you a trip* and give you a comprehensive list of all the things my child loves to play with that definitely, absolutely aren’t any of his toys…

• The washing machine – been a firm favourite since day dot. When small, watching the clothes spin provided hours of entertainment. As a bum shuffler, opening and closing the door was pretty much the most fun ever and now he can crawl and pull himself up, the buttons are simply amazing. Especially when they stop things mid-wash.
• Sticking with a laundry theme, the clothes airer – with or without clothes, it doesn’t matter. Sticking his fingers in the folding mechanism and pulling the pegs off to chew (and subsequently shatter into a million plasticy pieces) would take up a good proportion of his day if we let it. Occasionally he’ll pull it over onto him and he falls out with it for about a millisecond.
• The wire and plug on the hoover – he’s a particular fan of leaving the plug upturned and poking out from the doorway so we stand on it when we’re not paying attention.
• The dishwasher tablet draw – because sticking your fingers in where detergent goes is always going to be a winning activity.
• Recycling – at our house, it’s any of the recycling boxes. Ok, the glass one is the most fun, but we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. At the grandparent’s house, it’s the food recycling box. It’s gross, and probably why he loves it so much. They’ve now bought him his own one to play with but obviously it doesn’t have old tea bags or potato peel in it, so it’s pretty much tossed aside with the toys.
• Deodorant cans – the noise they make as they shoot pressurised, (probably) highly toxic chemicals into your face is just HILARIOUS.
• Packs of bottled water – why use the walker when you can push a 12-pack of Evian around the room?
• And finally, stones – the little white ones from the back garden, the pebbles from the front or even the hard, old end of a sausage from a BBQ a couple of months ago (true story, happened just recently. No idea where it came from); it doesn’t matter. He thinks they’re all brilliant fun to put in his mouth while eyeballing me as I say “no” over and over again.

You’re welcome. Like I say it’s comprehensive but by no means exhaustive. If I talked about all things my child can see the fun in (but none of the danger in), I’d be here forever. Because although I moan, I do know that the beauty of babies is that everything is new and exciting and magical. Maybe that’s how I should look at the hob cleaner next time I get it out…

*Take the trip. The little BeatBo is actually pretty fab and the right size to tuck in the changing bag for those urgent-distraction-needed moments. And we do also have train track, which I’m sure he’ll love just as soon as he’s big enough to play with it.

SassyB

Mum to one and step-mum to another, working and living in the Midlands. I used to write about other people, now I'm trying my hand at writing about myself. Pretty much only had a baby so I could dress someone up in a costume at least once a week...

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