With dozens of songs, words and letters at its disposal, the alphabet train- which I believe is made by Leap Frog- is one of the more irritating toys that Av owns. I bought it with the idea of her riding it around the house in mind, but all she really did was press the annoying buttons, laugh when the frog conductor said "ALL ABOARD" and within a few months had started completely ignoring its existence.
In close location to the alphabet train are two additional toys of equal annoyance. First, there is Tempo the Tiger, who I have also talked about here in the past. A Jazz singing broom, Tempo's hey day was about six months ago when Av was really getting in to the whole idea of kitchen supplies. After a few months away, Tempo has experienced a recent resurgence, now that Av likes to pretend that she is super busy, moving things around the kitchen, sweeping, eating two-week-old floor Froot Loops and the like. Unfortunately, the soulful tiger/broom's motivational comments like "sweeping is fun!" have apparently become too much for Av to deal with, as she has again banished him to the corner of the playroom.
Joining Tempo is potentially the worst toy I have ever come across in my life. Given to us by some well-wishing family member on her birthday, this musical, encouraging teddy bear is so annoying that not even Av has enough patience to deal with it. The purpose of the bear is to teach children about body parts? Maybe? I am not really sure, but pretty much anywhere you touch it it says something. Not just something, mind you, something incredibly annoying. If you press its hand it will not just say 'hand,' it will say 'haaaaannnnnnd.' Also, there are certain places where you touch it that it will say "I looooove you!" or "You're soooooooo big!" or "huuuuuug me!" It is all a little creepy, to be honest.
To make a long story short, all three of these toys have been essentially speaking out of turn lately. Sometimes when we are playing I will randomly hear Tempo yell "I love to sweep!" or rapist teddy bear whispering "my red heart!" I chalked all of this up to some toy settling near the bottom of the box, or maybe the cats bumping in to Tempo and triggering one of his 567 different noise prompts, but last night things got a little bit creepy.
It was about 5 a.m. and I was struggling to stay asleep, like I do most nights, after a particularly stressful and aggravating night at work when I hear the following song.
"Chugga chagga choo choo spin around, every letter has a sound!"
"What word starts with the letter B?"
(three second pause)
"BOY!"
WHAT THE HELL!? I sat up and looked around to find fat Nugget fat sleeping on her fat cat bed, and Little Cat in her usual morning position- that is pacing around the room looking at my eyelids waiting for them to open so she can immediately pounce on me and lick my face. I appreciate the excitement that I am awake, I do, but it is 5 a.m. Come on. Anyway, with both cats in the room I was a little bit puzzled as to what set off the train. Just as I started to let it go and close my eyes again I hear...
"We have every letter of the alphabet ALL ABOARD the alphabet train!"
"What word starts with the letter L?"
(three second pause)
"LION!"
At this point, I am both annoyed that I am awake and a little creeped out by what is setting off this stupid toy. This went on two more times, with two more different letters- which is the creepiest part about it, because the letter song is only supposed to go off when you push down on the frog's head and spin the see and say on the front of the train, which randomizes the numbers. I kept looking over at Monica to see if she noticed, but she was either too asleep or too annoyed to acknowledge it. Just when I was about to get up and see what the deal was, mostly worried now about the stupid train waking the baby up at 5:15, the songs stopped. Weird.
Later in the morning Av and I were having an argument over the radio in the playroom (she likes to listen to music, but won't stop pressing the buttons so it keeps turning off, which in turn, pisses her off) when Tempo decided to chime in again, this time breaking out in his jazzy sweeping song. This fulfilled Av's need for music but succeeded in making me wonder if these reject noise toys are planning some sort of attack Here is how I see it going down:
Tempo can't move by himself, so rapist teddy bear is going to have to grab a hold of him as they both mount the alphabet train. Scooting across the house I can see the train picking up less vocal members of the toy community as well, like maybe the stuffed Grover she has cast aside and some plastic friends from the play kitchen. This hoard of angry toys will invade the bedroom seeking blood and vengeance. Of course, since they are toys and I am a rather large human being I think I will be able to thwart off the threat, but if they bring weapons there could be a problem.
Poop follies
It has been a while since we've had any major poop incidents. We're going to have to reset the counter after today, unfortunately. She was taking a bath this morning, after a yogurt incident at snack time, and out of nowhere started to cry. I thought that she wanted to get out or maybe hurt herself somehow being an idiot with one of her toys, which she does a lot. I picked her up out of the tub and sat her on the towel where she cried for a few minutes. Once she stopped I let her stand up in the towel and walk to her bedroom. She took one step and a giant clump of poop flopped out on to the bathroom floor. I don't know if she just pooped it out then or if it had been steaming on my lap for a little bit. Either way, it was gross. In my panic over trying to clean up the poop, I forgot to realize that she likes to bend over and touch things, so I had about a split second to stop her from picking up this log of poop and doing God knows what with it. Not a great way to end bath time. Not at all.
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