Heigh ho, Heigh ho, it's back to work I go! Also, an update on Mal's Combat Against Stoopid Toys


After nine months of leave, I'm going back to work tomorrow (Wednesday). The day before my birthday ^^; This was unintentional, but still whap-worthy in hindsight. I shoulda thought that one through and given myself a day on the town for a b-day present.

My fic output is going to dry up for awhile due to brand new and aggressive time constraints the addition of a PS3 to the family has nothing to do with this. I have one fic for that smut-me challenge that's only missing two smutly paragraphs before I can call it done, so that may be out the doors at some point. After that...no clue! I suspect all my brainjuice will be drained for the immediate future, though.







So, does everyone remember my epic search for a ball? Well, Squidlet has grown up a lot and now needs more challenging toys as well as basic ones. So I went looking for one of those ABC of toys: the peg with rainbow-colored plastic hoops fitting over it. I had that toy when I was a baby, and that was some time ago, lemme tell you, but it's simple, it's challenging for an infant, it's all good. Surely I can find one, right?

Well, I did, but not before running into a...an object, shall we say, that shall haunt my nightmares. The first hoop-stacker I ran into was mounted on a musical spinning pedestal (wtf?) and each hoop had some shiny dangly thinger attached to its periphery. I thought the ball-madness was about to start all over again, but fortunately the next shop (Toys R Us, sigh) had a regular plain vanilla hoop-stacker and my sanity was saved. But let's review this point by point, shall we?

. Music and spinning. WHY? If I want a music box, I'll buy a bloody music box. Enough things out there damage our tots' hearing (seriously, check decibel output, especially for lil' rugrats who tend to examine everything with their mouth). What does that add? Is the kid supposed to sit and stare at the spinning singing thing? THAT'S NOT THE IDEA! And if he/she just wades in and destroys the stack and starts biting, hitting and hurling hoops left, right and center - as is normal baby behaviour - what was the point of the bells and whistles anyway?

. The shiny dangly thingers around each hoop. Now, it didn't help my first impression of this 'improvment' that one of said thingers was a purple sequiny string that immediatley and profoundly evoked the gizmos attached to the tits of the gogo dancer in The Graduate (okay, that's weird even by my standards, BUT IT DID!). But once more, what's the added-value? Babies don't need shinies to be attracted to big plastic coloured rings. Mother Nature PROGRAMMED babies to grab anything grabbable from your coffee cup to the cat, so there's really no need to guild the lilly. As soon as I put down the plain hoop-stack, Squidlet shot towards it like an arrow out of a ballista (did I mention she crawls now? Oy vey) and didn't need encouragement. PLUS - very important point here - the dangly thingers around the periphery of the hoops would stop them from performing their most important function: to be tossed at a wall, at the peg, at the cat, etc. and then spin and spin like mad on the hardwood floor until they settle and can be picked up and tossed again. With those dangly bits on the edge, they coulnd't possibly roll worth a damn. FAIL!


Squidlet is now the proud owner of a proper hoop-stack, which mom patiently picks up and puts back together on an hourly basis. As for mom...she loves the baby disaster-zone to death but she can't wait to get back to work, either. (I expect this sentiment to last exactly three weeks).

Mal over and out and packing her laptop bag.