Christmas with a young child
When we got married, my husband and I decided to carry on a family tradition where his mother used to make sure that each member of the family got a gift from the four categories that she believed made Christmas complete – ‘something to eat’, ‘something to read’, ‘something to wear’ and ‘something to play with’.
Now that we have the best ‘something to play with’ ever, in the shape of our son Arran, we have decided to focus the tradition on him this year.
Arran recently turned one, and so his ‘something to eat’ is easily covered in the shape of a small treat, ‘something to wear’ will be a cute outfit that he will grow out of in ten minutes, and a lift-the-flap/rip-out-the-flap book will cater for his ‘something to read’ needs. The ‘something to play with’ category is another story though, and one with vast possibilities.
Before having a child, people often have all kinds of romantic notions about what it’s going to be like to have a baby, along with some naïve assertions about how they are going to parent. Then, when the baby arrives, they find that it takes about a week for them to let go of their entire belief system, and start making it up as they go along.
For me, one of my pre-baby ideals was that I would not fall victim to the chunky plastic toys that seemed to fill my friends’ living rooms. Instead my baby would enjoy playing with high-quality hand-crafted toys. They would be made from natural materials and finished in a pleasingly subtle array of matte colours.
After all, I reasoned, a baby would enjoy these toys just as much as the brightly-coloured, all bells and whistles, light-up, talking musical ones, right? Well… not always. As I quickly discovered, there is a reason that toy manufacturers make baby toys with the shapes, colours and features that they do – it’s because they know what babies like.
That’s not to say that they dislike the beautiful (and, as I’ve discovered, expensive) toys out there, but there is something about seeing the delight on your baby’s face as he pushes a plastic button that makes you not mind the irritating tune the toy produces for the millionth time.
Having made my peace with baby toys, I turned to online retailers when planning Arran’s ‘something to play with’ this Christmas, in an attempt to narrow down a few types of toy from the vast array out there. On most sites, toys can be filtered by age, sex and a variety of other categories.
A wonderful ‘problem’ about having a one-year-old is that he will be interested in and play with virtually anything, so this filter system is simply a way of narrowing down the choices for my own benefit. Inputting the relevant details gave me a few pages of gender-appropriate toys, but in reality I have no problem with my son playing with a doll (his father might disagree with me on this point!).
I am also vaguely tempted to buy him a toy hoover or iron to instil good habits from an early age, and because it amuses me that they have been carefully classed as being appropriate for ‘both genders’ (someone should tell the grownups).
It’s important for toy companies to give age guidelines to ensure the safety of children playing with their products too, but I must admit there have been occasions when my common sense has over-ridden the manufacturer’s decision. The ball pool that I recently bought him warned of its unsuitability for children under the age of three, but I couldn’t imagine a child over the age of three taking as much simple delight in it as my (then) nine-month-old did – and of course he was supervised at all times.
The reverse of this is also true – older children will often play quite happily with a toy that is designed for younger ones. Certainly my sister-in-law has saved ‘baby toys’ to pass on to us, but finds that when she gets them out for Arran, her children will still play enthusiastically with them.
I wanted his Christmas toy to have longevity too – like the Whizz Around Garage that we bought him for his birthday. Right now, he enjoys pressing the buttons, ‘brooming’ the cars on the floor, and throwing them down the lift shaft. Later he will, hopefully, play imaginatively with the cars, taking them through the ‘car wash’, transporting them up and down in the lift and letting them whizz down the slope.
Inspiration for Christmas came in the form of watching Arran play with his four-year-old cousin’s toy ambulance from WOW. This has a friction motor so it makes a pleasing noise, and is nice to push along as it offers a certain degree of resistance.
At first, I assumed that this was a toy for an older child, and so carefully removed the interior parts, but after speaking to WOW, they confirmed that the ‘thumbs up’ stance of all their characters means that they cannot be swallowed.
His enjoyment of this toy helped me reach a decision – and not one that my previous ‘toy snob’ self could have envisaged. This year for Christmas, Arran is going to get two friction-powered vehicles from WOW. They are brightly-coloured, they are made of chunky plastic, they are noisy, they are gender appropriate, they are age appropriate and my little boy will love them. He’s also getting an Aquadraw, because I’ve always wanted to play with one.
In the end, it comes down to simply settling on something ‘this time’, because there is so much out there that I’m sure it will only be a few weeks past Christmas till I discover something else that I can’t resist buying for him. Plus since my lucky boy has a total of seven grandparents, there are plenty of people to assign things on my back-up list to!
Arran doesn’t actually understand about Christmas yet, so this year is all about our excitement to be celebrating Christmas with our little boy. We can enjoy the fact that he’s too young to be influenced by marketing, or ask for anything, and will be delighted with whatever we produce on Christmas morning.
And, let’s face it, at one year old he may well be equally entertained by the box it comes in.
