I went to one of my favourite tea shops today and saw these Momiji Mugs and fell in love. The mugs currently come in 4 different designs, each with a different message at the bottom of the mug. The packaging is pretty, and it cleverly holds the the mug so it won’t move around in the box.
About a month ago, my daughter and I walked to the beach to watch the sunset. I enjoyed the serenity with no one else around. It was starting to get dark as we walked back, but it was a beautiful night. My daughter was dawdling a bit, so I stopped to let her catch up. She was pointing at the moon, the dog in the window, the fence where she sometimes sees cats. She was walking in quick little steps, or sideways. Not catching up quickly, but eventually. I was quite shocked when all of a sudden she looked down, spread her feet wide, screamed, and fell on her rear end. She’d been bitten by a spider recently, so I wondered if maybe she thought she’d seen one. Anyway, I carried her the rest of the way home.
Last night we were a bit late coming home from our walk. We were on the walkway to our house, when all of a sudden she looked down, gave a cry of fear, spread her legs out again, and started crying, “Up! Up!” I went over to investigate, and I realized that she was afraid of the shadow that was looming in front of her—her own shadow. I tried to show her that the shadow was harmless, but she wanted off the ground right away and was not interested in making shadow figures on the ground or trying to touch it.
I put her down once we were inside the house, and she followed me into the kitchen for a glass of milk. Except she was waylaid by the sudden appearance of that shadow in the dining room. “Up! Up!” I started to wonder if this might develop into a problem. It seems that my daughter has just now noticed the existence of shadows, and she’s not at all pleased—not even if I sing the song. Not even if her Nana sings the song. It’s funny to think that “afraid of her own shadow” is really a possibility, but it’s not so funny that she really is afraid.
My mother philosophically pointed out that it’s only a short while that she is so little that you have to protect her from things like this. It is very sweet. Still, what if she didn’t get over it? Not that that is likely, but I’ll be happier when this has passed.
I understand that making a toy educational is theoretically a good thing, but I remember when the only educational advantage I had during any given day was an adult who was trying to teach me something. The benefit of that being that if I started to learn the wrong thing, they could correct me and gently coach me back to the correct path.
I don’t know a single adult in the world who actually wants to spend time watching or playing with all of their kid’s toys in advance to make sure there aren’t secret satanic messages stitched into the lining. Generally speaking, I just take it for granted that the CBC does not fund the Doodlebops to promote kicking puppies or whatever. But to be honest, I don’t really know because after one episode it was simply good enough for me that the monster boy was entranced and therefore not attacking the DVD player.
I have never met a parent in my life who did not at some point or another make this claim: “I never had as many toys as my son/daughter!”
I wasn’t sure what the point of the statement was. I didn’t know whether it meant ‘I’m going to spoil the kid rotten in order to avoid having to deal with more subtle displays of affection’, or ‘damn I’m rich.’
Now that I have a child, I can decode the real meaning after having caught myself uttering that mysterious phrase—a sure sign of entry into the club of slightly freaked out parents. I too, without an ounce of irony declared: “I never had as many toys as my son!”
As I heard myself say it, I finally understood the actual translation; it really means, “How can the same parents, who assured me over multiple Christmases that clothing was a decent present, now shower my child with colourful plush or plastic items which seem to have no other function than to drive me entirely mad?”
Toddler meets yogurt with blueberries
It wasn’t until my daughter was about a year old that I formed any opinion about bibs and their usefulness. I used to think that the one that best matched her outfit was the one for the job.
About the same time that my daughter was able to walk a bit, I was afraid that she had lost her appetite. Then I tried letting her hold the spoon, and I realized that she wanted to feed herself. She also decided she didn’t want to wear her bibs anymore, and she would throw any bib she could rip off onto the floor. I’d received about 20 bibs as gifts by that time, and all but one fastened with Velcro which she could fling off with spectacular results.
When I started to notice tubs of stained bibs and clothes soaking all over my kitchen, and that my stress level would jump if I opened up her bib drawer to find that she was out of clean bibs, I realized that I was going about this the wrong way.
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