Still Just a Big Kid

Since the holidays wouldn't be the holidays without a little disappointment, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about all the Christmas gifts I repeatedly asked for as a child, but never got. You'd think that as an adult I'd have more perspective, and realize that material posessions don't matter, that I am no worse for the wear, that not getting everything I wanted taught me a valuable lesson about the true meaning of Christmas. You'd think that--but you'd be wrong. I eagerly anticipate getting all of these things (or their modern, boy-appropriate equivalent) for my son and having him NOT be disappointed year after year. And yes, I know that Christmas isn't about posessions and blah blah blah, but I still want to see his little face light up. . .and of course, I will enjoy playing with the toys myself. Wink.

So without further ado: Christmas Gifts I Never Got. . .

The Easy Bake Oven. What little girl (or boy) wouldn't want something in which they could bake all their favourite treats? Well, I was no different from the other little boys and girls out there. I desperately wanted to bake my own cookies, cupcakes and squares, but year after year, I remained easy bakeless. Le sigh.

Yes, I am aware that these are gaudy and terrible, but I am still scarred by the image of my friends zipping around the neighbourhood in their battery operated cars, while I was stuck on the sidelines with my STUPID BIKE, expected to actually PEDAL to get where I wanted to go, like some kind of chump!

Ken Dolls. I have no idea why, but year after year I asked for a Ken, and year after year I continued to get only female Barbies. My solution to this, of course, was to cut off their hair, dress them in shirts and pants, and pretend that they were men. Were my parents afraid that I would act out romantic scenes between Barbie and Ken, which would lead me to eventually realize that I was interested in boys and didn't want to just spend my life hanging out with my gal pals? All I know is, that to this day when walking through the toy section, I feel a little pang when I see the various Ken dolls that my Barbies never got the pleasure of meeting.

I don't know that this very cool Eco House from Plan Toys was around when I was a kid, but I do know that I longed for a proper dolls house--not one that was made out of lego. This house is amazing. It's got solar panels, wind energy, and I believe you can purchase recycling bins and rainwater containers to go along with it. I definitely plan on buying this for my little guy in a few years. And if he's not interested in playing house? Well, I know of someone who will be playing with this toy all by herself. . .

Look at this kitchen! It's a dream! Though when I was a kid I'm sure I wanted a gaudy, brightly coloured plastic one-piece kitchen, this is definitely more my style. It's better than the kitchen I have now, actually. I loved to play with playfood in Sunday school when I was a kid, and even as a baby sitter I definitely enjoyed pretend cooking with the kids. Nothing burns that way. My son will also have a kitchen. I already have it picked out. We don't have the room or the money for the one above, but IKEA has a very sweet realistic little kitchen that I can't wait to get my hands on. To give to my son, I mean.

I asked for a Game Boy for several years in a row, then finally realized it was never going to happen. I assumed that, because we also had no Nintendo system in our home, the reason must be that my parents were philosophically opposed to these  electronic games. And so I abandoned all hope. Just this past year I was talking to my mom about the fact that we weren't allowed video games growing up, and she told me that it wasn't that we weren't allowed. She just had no idea how to choose one, and since taking us to the store with her would have ruined the surprise, we just didn't get one by default. Oh, mom. ASK THE SALES CLERK! I'm sure my husband would agree with my latent frustration, since he is forever trying to get me to play video games with him, and I am forever getting frustrated because I don't know how. I had no practice in my formative years, I'm just not good. We recently got Little Big Planet, though, and if you're like me and would like to play but just don't know how, I'd recommend starting with that. It's a video game for people who don't like video games. Nothing comes out to kill you (at least on the levels I've seen), and you get to dress up your character and then randomly place stickers everywhere. Does it get any better than that?

Up Next: Christmas gifts I've asked for as an adult, year after year, but never get. (I'll be making sure the Husband reads that one!)

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Confessions of a Failed Minimalist Mommy

So.

I was under the impression that I would be a minimalist mom. A "less is more" mom. A "I don't feed my kid junk food or buy toys that light up and play music" mom. You should see my living room right now. This is clearly Baboo's house, and he's just allowing me and the Hubs to live here. In my living room alone I have those interlocking foam mats on the floor, a playmat,  a bouncy seat, a boppy (which I bought instead of a bumbo, because who can afford that) and yesterday we bought an exersaucer. I am hanging my head in shame right now.

Everything is plastic and polyester. Everything is BRIGHT blue and BRIGHT green. In my defense. . .

In my defense.

The bouncy seat was a gift. Okay, we did register for it, but hear me out. This is the bouncy seat:

We chose to register for this one, quite frankly, because the other ones were too expensive. We felt uncomfortable asking our family members to shell out $60 for something that they could just as easily get for $25. Even though it is so BRIGHT. I would have picked this one

but the bottom line is the bottom line.

We were told a bouncy seat is an absolute MUST--that its the only way that other moms get anything done around the house. So we registered for it. We were dismayed to find that it takes batteries in order to vibrate and play music, and that the batteries were NOT included. We didn't get the batteries. We figured he didn't need them, and would never know that his bouncy seat was supposed to vibrate and sing him to sleep.

My kid does not like his bouncy seat. He will sit in it for five minutes, tops. He will bat at the little turtle, then spend the rest of the time looking at me with his huge saucer eyes, waiting for me to pick him up. We thought if we bought the batteries that allowed it to vibrate and sing, then maybe I'd be able to put him in it during the day when I need to take a break. We we hauled ass to the store and picked up some batteries. With great anticipation we watched the thing vibrate and listened to the tinny "music" emanate from the little plastic box. We put our son in it, praying he would like it. He lasted 7 to 10 minutes, before he pleaded with us to rescue him from this strange, vibrating chair. We obliged.

I have another confession. We were told by our home visitor that exersaucers are harmful to baby's hips.  I never planned on getting an exersaucer in the first place. Not because they're bad for his hips, but because they're ugly. Plastic and ugly and unecessary in my opinion.

Its just that Baboo likes to stand. He LOVES to stand, in fact. He loves to stand on my lap when I'm trying to type, making it impossible for me to do so because of course to stand he needs to hold my hands. He loves to dig his freakishly large feet into my legs, and his toenails grow at such a rate that he's often digging those into me too. It's hard on the shoulders to hold him up like that. And he will fuss until he gets his way. He will fuss and fuss and fuss until he's allowed to stand. A couple mornings ago the Hubbs turned to me and said "Was Baboo fussing to stand last night?" (Last night being 4 am, after his feeding.)

"Yup," I replied. Nope, it wasn't just a bad dream. This kid even wants to stand when he shouldn't even be awake.

So we caved. We didn't want to, but the flier made us. I'm sure you know by now that I can't pass up a good bargain. Exersaucers were on sale! NOT the one that would have been my first choice (of course) with the real pictures of nature and a hand puppet for mom or dad to stick their hand in so that they can interact with their kid.

But it was an exersaucer nonetheless, and I really just needed a place where my kid could stand. So I bought it.

PsychoMama: Does it seem like he likes it?

The Hubbs: He doesn't seem upset by it. . .

He lasted about two minutes before he started to cry yesterday. And today he lasted about ten. He seemed to enjoy it more today. I even took a video of him playing in there and sent it to both my mom (who was with me when I bought it) and The Hubbs at school.

My next confession of a failed minimalist mommy, is that my only regret in regards to his playmat is that I live in Canada where the bigger one isn't available. That one lights up! That's right, folks.

As for Baboo's swing, we wouldn't have bought one because we were simply too poor when we were expecting him. A lovely mom from our local early years centre gave me her swing because she had two. I was thrilled thinking that it would be the magic fix for crying and overtiredness, but Baboo is not a huge fan of it. I admit that I may not have tried him in it enough (I can probably count on one hand the number of times he's been in that swing.) Part of the reason is that its in his nursery, which hasn't been completed and is being used as a partial storage room for the suitcases we STILL haven't unpacked (yes, we have THAT much stuff--how's that for minimalism?) The other reason is that the week we brought him home from the hospital, he was absolutely miserable at night between the hours of 7 and 9. I tried putting him in his swing when we were both crying inconsolably, and after a minute, it did the trick. Then The Hubbs said this to me:

"He looks really sad."

And that broke my heart. Yes, he was no longer crying, but I was his mother and I deposited him into a swing so that I could take a break. He really did look sad. His eyes looked large and weary, and his lip was in a full, turned down pout. So I have barely put him in his swing since then. Whenever I'm about to I remember the words "He looks really sad", and it turns me off. I'm glad we didn't pay for it. And while it is ugly and not something we'd ever pick out for ourselves, and least its not BRIGHT green or BRIGHT blue. It's that lovely dark blue plaid, circa all 1990s baby gear.

What's even sadder than all the brightly coloured plastic in my home is that fact that my son has barely any wooden toys. I know that isn't really fair, since its hard to find "gear" that's wooden and he's not at an age where he'll be playing with toys that aren't tethered to things yet. I know we'll be buying him wooden toys like train sets and building blocks and a wooden kitchen when he's older, but still.

You know there's a problem when your mom comes to visit and the first words out of her mouth are "When did you guys decide to buy a Toys R Us?"

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