Toy buying = love

Noah is in love with the bouncy chair. The toys that dangle on its bar are just the right distance for looking and reaching, and when he kicks, things move and jingle. Not bad for a freecycle find. Right now he’s next to me telling them some baby story, lots of coohs and gahs and ahs. [Or was, when I started.Since then he's had a feed, slept on my lap for 20 min, had tummy time, had dance time, had another feed, and gone down for what should be a longer nap.] He seems to need this kind of time right now, not in my arms and interacting with the physical universe on his own time. At least until he gets tired out or bored.

So my days involve holding, cuddling, dancing, walking, feeding – and quite a bit of moving Noah from playpen to playmat to bouncy chair to swing to crib. I feel a strange sadness because – he has lots of fun there, not in my arms. And yet, that’s what should be happening. For 15 min at a time anyway. :) It’s made him a lot easier to entertain in his carseat too, and that’s a good, especially if we are going to breach the coffee shop barrier this weekend.

(By the way, I did read the coffee shop article, after reading this response with which I mostly agree, especially the idea that kids in coffee shops are not news.

Here’s my take: I wouldn’t stay in a coffee shop with a screaming baby, or an obnoxious toddler. I would take them out. However I would like to raise a child who knows how to behave in all kinds of places, and that involves taking them there.

This may mean that now and then we experience a gap between “the planning (toys, etc.) we put into taking our kid somewhere which failed” and “the moment at which we knew we had to leave.” But it will hopefully be a short gap. That gap is the price people pay for me to raise my kids so they become decent human beings, citizens, and yes, workers and consumers of the future, who will be paying taxes for their old age income to come out of.

Deal with it. After all, people on their cell phones can be just as obnoxious.

My parents didn’t have a lot of money but when they did have a little extra they did take my sister and I places – restaurants, the symphony and ballet at really very young ages (carefully selected, i.e. Nutcracker), museums and galleries, and now and then their workplaces. We were generally well behaved because we learned if we weren’t, we had to sit in the car instead and that was boring. This is one of the things I think my parents did really right.

And yes, it’s still intimidating me to think of starting to actually -do- this because of course I don’t want to upset other people and be embarassed and, god forbid, have a blanket slip off my tit at the wrong moment. :))

Back from that tangent: the emergence of reaching and laughing has spawned a strange consumeristic urge in me that goes like: must get the right toys!

So far I have resisted and improvised with what we have (& have been given/handed down), but I suspect a trip to Crayons or some equally developmental-toy-laden store is in my future. (This is because of the absence of wooden spools from my life, I’m sure. Otherwise I would string up a bunch.) Noah’s favourites so far are some dangly soft animals that jingle and crinkle – he can actually grab and hold the little ears & tails. (They’re Lamaze, handed down from E.) He also likes the teething links to look at, and my finger, kleenex, and any fabric to grab. I’m finding a lot of toys are just too big for him right now – he’s nowhere near coordinating two hands.

Have I mentioned my loathing of toys where the baby hits something and electronic music &/or lights go off? I really am a fan of *real* music for babys and toys that react, but not those kinds. One of the few toys we have that I actually bought is the vintage Fisher Price crib gym with the spinning bits and the bell precisely because it wasn’t the Ocean Wonders flashy thingamabob (plus it was at Value Village for $4-something). I am really hoping to strike a balance between a good assortment of high quality toys and enough mental space for Noah to use them in his own way. Like… blocks. Puzzles. Drawing stuff. Cars and dolls. Playhouses. Capes and funny hats. You know the kind of thing.

But at this stage I am kind of at a loss and I do find myself being drawn to brands by name alone like… Manhattan Toys, whose imagination stuff I adore. Which is kind of sad. Maybe I’m talking myself out of this shopping trip after all.

I would just like for him to have the best in life, without drowning in crap or excess.

Carl said the other day that he’s starting to believe Noah will be with us for a long time. I knew what he meant: we sort of call it moving beyond the Emily effect. My version lately has been to start to believe that he might be healthy. Really I have been waiting to hear that his brain is all liquid or he has no kidneys or something like that. But we have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I’m thinking it might just be a check up. That’s kind of new.

It might be safe to buy toys. Of course that doesn’t mean I have to. But I may go through that phase anyway.