My first bit of advice? When your children get to a certain age, oh, say, about 18 months - 2 years, people will buy them lovely wooden peg puzzles. The ones with the large wooden pieces that match the pictures underneath and have pegs on the top for easier grabbing for little fingers that are still learning how they work.
These are wonderful toys that help your children learn - by themselves even. Cherish them. But some of these puzzles have little solenoids. So that when you put the piece in, it makes a noise.
For the love of God, DO NOT PUT BATTERIES IN THIS TOY. This is a lovely puzzle UNTIL YOU PROVIDE A POWER SOURCE.
You will start to feel lazy, not getting out the screwdriver to take off the battery cover, and cheap because you won't put two double-As into your beautiful child's toy for their learning and enjoyment. BUT DO NOT GIVE IN.
I will tell you what happens if you do:
- The sound these puzzles make is akin to 80s electronic toys - tinny and bearing little resemblance to the advertised sound. What it lacks in clarity, it makes up for in volume. Your teeth will crawl back up into your skull.
- The children will run from this toy and never play with it again, diving into your lap and saying, "[S]Cared, mama, cared!"
- If you don't have all pieces in at all times (and trust me, you won't), the sound represented by the missing piece will go off EVERY TIME you turn off the lights. This is just a little thing that senses darkness, so it doesn't discern if you put in the piece or blocked out the sun. Although, you might be comforted to know the little ambulance siren will go off in the event of an apocalyptic meteor strike.
5 comments:
We decided pre baby that we were going to try to keep the electronic toys to a minimum for the little one. We figure with geeks for parents she'll have plenty of exposure, she doesn't need it when she's playing with blocks.
Oh my! Yeah, some toys are meant to be battery-powered... and some are NOT. Puzzles fall definitely into the NOT category!
"in the event of an apocalyptic meteor strike" - LOL!
I agree that puzzles are meant to be quiet toys. One of my coworkers puts packing tape over electronic toys that are just too loud- like the play guitar, which should make noise, just not quite so much of it.
I feel for you!
In my early days as a mom, I used to buy those toys that make noise because of their educational practicality. I quite when the big one was around two. Many others continued buying him noisy toys, I didn't need to continue contributing to my own madness. I never replaced the batteries either. I decided I would spend a few minutes with him telling him what noises the pictures/items make myself. That way, I avoided the low battery voice warping sound of practically every toy he owned.
Puzzles would be even more enjoyable without scary noises coming from them!
I died laughing when I heard of your noise trauma. Although you don't remember, you had a number of toys that made just the same type of noise - the difference is that most of those toys did not run on batteries, so there was not an easy way to turn them off. We did manage to alter them somewhat. I like the tape idea. All in all this seems to be a rite of passage for parents - and it appears you have passed.
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