As I drink my coffee this morning and listen to the joyful sounds of my children playing, I have discovered a toy we will be donating. Today, if possible. How can something without batteries be so obnoxious? My coffee time (in which I ease back into the world of the living and shore up my patience for the day) has been dangerously interrupted by this constant whacking sound. Building an addition? No. Worse. It’s Whack-a-mole; a cute little red hammer on these pop-up things. It’s a baby toy, so the baby should be playing with it. In all honesty, that probably wouldn’t be as bad. What is bad is when my Paul Bunyan of a 4 year old gets a hold of it and punishes those little pop-up guys, daring them to reemerge. They do, of course. Not because they want to, mind you. It’s just how it’s built.
This toy isn’t bad on its own. They both have legitimately irritating toys. The kinds that are irritating in the middle of the night when no one is around. At least this particular toy doesn’t greet me in the wee hours with a creepy automated “Good Morning!” followed by weird music that makes me instantly think I’m in a hacker movie. This toy quietly sits in the toy box, looking somewhat cute. I don’t think Andrew has played with it much. He can hit the pop-ups with the hammer. I’m sure it was designed for hand-eye coordination. I can imagine that babies might even find the pop-ups amusing. Carson finds them to be taunting. He is trying to knock them all down and that’s just not how it works. He knows that, of course. He starts playing it for fun, but I can see the intensity change. He starts to think he can really beat it this time. Maybe if he hammers faster he can knock them all down before one pops up. Maybe if he hits them hard enough to drive a nail into a two-by-four...hmmm. Maybe I should give him something constructive to do! With a swing like that, I’m sure I can get him assembling the additional raised beds or something!
Sometimes my day feels like a game of whack-a-mole and you probably have those days, too. You start to knock out your relatively minor to-do list that day, but other stuff keeps popping up all around you. When you get one thing done, 4 more things pop up. I can understand the thought of knocking them all out at once.
On a different note entirely, I should probably be ashamed of myself for wanting to donate an irritating toy. Why would I even consider the potential of this toy getting into the hands of another innocent family, knowing what I know? We should be cheerful givers. Well...you can rest assured in that part. I am cheerfully giving it away.
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