Your Input Requested
When I was pregnant, one of my clients grandma’s gave Charlie a toy that definitely freaked me out a bit at the time. It’s a blue and green hybrid dog-seal-lar-phin (dog face, seal flippers, caterpillar thorax, dolphin fluke) whose cheeks flash red while it plays “Rock-a-Bye Baby” after you press it’s abdomen. I would’ve returned it but it smelled horribly because she was a chain-smoker. I couldn’t regift it for the same reason…and because it was so strange. So, after a good wash & dry in smoke-free air, Charlie got to see the toy. He adored it. This softened my heart enough that I came to accept the toy and allowed it to hang out with us. It even traveled with us…frequently. At his 5-month EKG and echocardiogram we must’ve played it fifty times to keep him content during the procedures. Even at his second visit many months later, it did wonders to keep him happy during the wait. Then we moved and mutant toy disappeared for several weeks. When Charlie saw it he still seemed interested, but after I pressed the button, he cried horribly. Vaccination-like crying. I had to nurse him to calm him. I couldn’t figure out why, but the same response happened several days later with another toy who plays music upon squeezing (no lights). I promptly put both of these toys in our basement’s growing piles of stuff for the next little Love.
Well, these piles were brought upstairs again this week so that I could sort through clothes to lend to a friend who recently had a baby. Charlie used his ever refining standing ability to see into the boxes and saw the hybrid before I did. Of course, he wanted it. I let him hold it. He handed it to me, seeming to request that it be played. I pressed the stomach, and voila!, major tears. Red-faced, downturned-lower-lip wailing. I put it in a box that he couldn’t reach, but after he recovered he pointed to the box. Thankfully, I distracted him away from it to avoid the sadness that would inevitably come with him having that toy…either through hearing it or me not playing it despite his requests.
Any of you know of any kids that have had this love/hate relationship with their toys?
