Baby Toys and Much More

When I was a baby, baby toys were not half as complex as they are today. In fact the baby toys I had couldn’t really be called complex. I had a rattle, a doll, and a block or two. They stayed in pretty pristine condition because my baby toys of choice tended to be things like pots and pans from my mothers kitchen, a wooden spoon that made a delightful bang when it hit the floor and empty boxes.

When my own daughter was born, I received a lot of baby toys as gifts. At least I thought they were baby toys, but most of them looked like you needed a college degree in engineering just to get them out of the box. Once out of the box, some of these baby toys took me hours to figure out. As I sat looking at a computerized panel thing that was supposed to hang on the crib and stimulate an infant with soothing sounds and soft flashing lights, I wondered what happened to the days of simple baby toys.

As my daughter’s first birthday approached, I started to think about what baby toys might make a good birthday gift for her. My friends all had a myriad of suggestions for suitable baby toys. As I compiled my list, adding every must have my friends suggested, I wondered how one tiny child could play with so many baby toys. True my daughter has a short attention span, but I always figured that meant I could rotate the same five baby toys into her toy chest

I spent an entire afternoon in a toy store perusing all ten aisles of baby toys. There were toys to stimulate a child’s vocal abilities. Toys to stimulate visual learning. Toys to help with coordination and other toys that were just for fun. It seemed to me that if I bought my daughter everything that my friends recommended and everything the helpful toy store clerks suggested, my daughter could play with a different toy every hour of the day for a week and never touch the same toy twice.

I read the back of the boxes, compared toys, and finally made a few purchases. I took everything home and spent the evening wrapping gifts and picturing my daughter’s face as she opened the toys I had lovingly picked out for her. She did enjoy opening her gifts and glanced at them for about five seconds before she tossed them aside for the ribbons, paper, and boxes.

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