I spuddle.

You know, I’m really starting to wonder why I call this post Five Thing Friday.   Last night I was reading Petite Anglaise, which is a book inspired by the blog Petite Anglaise, which made me read the blog Petite Anglaise and I realized that I very much doubt that I Spuddle is ever going to become a lucrative book deal because it’s all, Hey, is it Friday?  No?  It’s Sunday?   Where am I?   And not witty observations about life in France from the perspective of a Brit, but more like observations on my mundane life from the perspective of me.    Which is fine because I’m finishing up three separate other books that aren’t about me or my mundane life and hopefully they will very shortly get sold and the fact that my blog isn’t going to become a bestseller won’t matter.   My kids will still eat.   Well, mostly they eat because their father works AND gets paid, which is a nice combination, one I’m striving for myself after taking a year or two or three off to turn my kids from embryos into the full-fledged screaming beasts that they are today.

In other news, my left ear is completely blocked.   I know what you’re thinking:

THAT is why I’m not getting blog-based book deals.   Not because of the blockage, but because I’m telling you about it.   I’m thinking of reforming.   Soon I will stop sharing details of my ear and begin observing things properly in a more book-ish way.   I promise.   In any event, my ear has been blocked for about six months but last week I developed a cold — that had bloody well better not be the Swine Flu even though I suspect that it is and maybe my days are numbered so you should be nice to me while I’m here — and now it’s so extra blocked that it’s like there is a weight inside my head (specifically inside my ear) that’s causing me to tilt precipitously to the left and/or always make me feel slightly like I have motion sickness and/or sea sickness.    Even though I was just on a boat and even though it was tremendously rough on the sea, I did not feel as sick as I’ve felt since the ear-thing began.

Enough about that.   I will post about our holiday either tomorrow or a week from Friday.   Given my ability to do things on a schedule, I’d look for it closer to Christmas.   Speaking of Christmas, which we weren’t, but who cares, today on Five Thing Friday Whatever Day, I’m going to talk about five kids’ toys that have stood the test of time.   We played with these when we were kids, our kids play with them, they are downright awesome and THESE, my pretties, are what you should gift to your preschoolers for Christmas or their birthday or the next gift-giving occasion which — if you’re like me — could range from First Day Of School Nerves Gift to You Went To The Dentist Gift to Please Give Mummy A Few Hours To Work Quietly Gift.    You decide.

There is a giveaway in this post, so you’ll have to read the entire thing and then enter once, enter often.

It’s my first giveaway and frankly I reacted to it as though Harper Collins had just signed me to a multi-book deal.   Even though there is absolutely nothing in it for me, being asked to do a giveaway is akin to being given the stamp of approval that says, “WE ACTUALLY THINK PEOPLE READ YOUR BLOG!  DO FREE ADVERTISING FOR US!”, which — as you’ve probably guessed — is the kind of validation that I’m desperate for in every aspect of my life.   i.e. Any validation at all.   So good luck you, I hope you win.    I’m saving it for the fifth toy, in case you are wondering.   No, I’m not giving away a cardboard box, although I could, but I’m betting no one would ask me to and take care of the shipping and all of that, so I won’t.

1.   A Cardboard Box.   You think I’m kidding, but actually I’m not.   I have a gorgeous playroom that I designed myself and it is filled with every single toy you can imagine because yes, I do spoil my kids and also so do other people AND they have an older brother who never threw anything away so there are a LOT of toys down there, a lot of which are plastic and entirely ignored.    What my kids are playing with right this very minute is a cardboard box (a moving box) (actually two moving boxes taped together) that I turned into a house about three months ago and cut out a window and doors and whatnot.   Only they’ve turned it upside down and are using it as a boat and they’re using the other toys in the room only as pretend “luggage” on the trip that they’re pretending to take.   In the cardboard box.   YESTERDAY they used the cardboard box as one of the three houses they were pretending to buy on their game of pretend House Hunters, which — if you know me at all — you know I watch every day, enough that my kids actually believe the act of purchasing houses is how adults have fun.    Last year, I turned another moving box into a rocket ship which lived on my back deck until the rain caused it to disintegrate and it is the single only thing they played with back there, even when it was soggy and wet.   So.  A  cardboard box.   Do it.   They’re cheap and if you’re like me, you have stacks of them in the garage because you move so often due to an inability to stop looking for new houses and moving into them.

2.  Radio Flyer Spring Horse

We had one of these when we were kids but I’m betting it wasn’t $150.   Still, regardless, kids love these and now they’re all “safe” and stuff with the exposed springs covered up so no one pinches their fingers.   I’m not going to promise that this doesn’t make them less fun, as I’m pretty sure the act of getting our fingers pinched by the springs was the dangerous extra which made the horse extra thrilling.    We played with ours until it had a hole in the side and even then we kept playing with it even though the sharp plastic edge cut our legs.   Who cared?  It was a horse that bounced!   I bought The Bun the soft version of this when he was two and it was just myenh, I wish I’d bought this one which is fun versus the soft rocking one wich is not in any way dangerous and therefore mostly ignored, although The Birdy seems to like it a bit more than he did, which is to say not enough to make the purchase particularly worthwhile.   Oh, and FYI, I’m not suggesting you spend $150 on a gift for your kid for going to the dentist, I was searching for a picture of something else when I saw this and I thought, there, THAT’S something we had that we played with all the time that I must mention here.   So there you have it.

3.    Hot Wheels*

They don’t have to be cool antique looking Hot Wheels from our youth and you only need so many but there is a reason why a car that fits into a kid’s clenched fist is a timeless toy, whether your kids are boys are girls.   I know lots of people — well, some people — with girls and not boys — do not have Hot Wheels.  Because that’s a “boy” toy, right?  Uh, wrong?   EVERY KID IN THE ENTIRE WORLD REGARDLESS OF SEX OR NATIONALITY loves toy cars.   They just do.   I’ll bet if you dropped a box of Hot Wheels into a tribe in Papua New Guinea (not actually ON the people, but near them) the kids would be overjoyed.  Small cars are fun, period.   They roll down things, can be thrown at each other**, raced, collected, whatever.   The old ones are the best because the doors open and close although why this makes them more fun, I have no idea because it’s not like you have tiny Hot Wheels-sized people to stuff in there, although Cheerios fit nicely.   Actually Cheerios should be on this list because a Cheerio is both edible AND fun and even if you leave them under the couch for six to eight months, they still won’t make your child sick if they eat them AND still fun!  So an honorary mention to the Cheerio, our little friend.

4.  I asked my husband what toy he thought would fit this category and without hesitation he said “Action Figures”, and he’s probably right when it comes to boys.   The Bun loves action figures and actually so does The Birdy, who has her very own Wonder Woman and Batman.  So.  Action figures make the list.   I don’t have a picture because the store that I’m linking to shockingly does not sell action figures although I don’t know why not, but trust me on this, they don’t go out of style.   Although there is a limit.   No kid needs 1000 action figures because then there are too many and they will all get ignored.   One or two?   Will be much loved.   There’s a rule with kids’ toys that I’ve just made up that says if a kid has a few of something, they’ll play with them, but a lot of something will be shoved into a drawer and never looked at again because they become both boring and overwhelming in large numbers.   So don’t go crazy.   Buy a Spiderman.   Enjoy.

5.   Ta da!  THE TINKER TOY.

I am a big fan of building toys, period.   Lego, Lincoln Logs, Bristol blocks, whatever.   ESPECIALLY when they are just a big bucket of building toys and not building toys (I’m looking at YOU, Lego) designed to make only one specific thing that are then built and never taken apart and/or played with again.    Tinker Toys are ideal for “inventions” or “machines”, both of which The Bun is very fond of creating.    Tinker Toys have been around for approximately 1000 years and there is a reason for this:  they are smart, fun, non-plastic toys that rule, old skool.   You know it.   I have a longer anecdote about Tinker Toys and why I recently bought some for The Bun that doesn’t fit into this post.***

And now you, my lovely, if you live in the US or Canada, have a chance to win this very cylindrical bin of Tinker Toys for your preschooler.   They will love them.   Trust me.   Thanks to the nice people at csn stores.   If you’ve never shopped there, you ought to, and I’m not just saying that because they gave me Tinker Toys to give away, I’m saying that because guess what?   THEY SHIP TO CANADA.   Unlike amazon, which offers a lot of the same products, they do not regard Canada as a foreign outpost unworthy of bothering with, they actually make it easy.   And?  They have a huge selection of kids’ stuff and a wide variety of other things that I rarely shop for because I have kids, but if you do not have kids and/or ever shop for anything else (such as for yourself) they also have, you know, everything else.

OK, here’s the nitty gritty.   This contest is sponsored by All Children’s Furniture who carry everything from kids chairs to, you know, toys.   Which is what we are giving away.   Enter by commenting below and the winner will be randomly selected by one of those online random-selector thingies.   Comments close August 28, 2009 at 5 pm (PST).   Tweet a link to this post (and tell me that you’ve done it) or link to it from your own blog for extra entries.    Tell everyone you know to also enter because if I have a lot of entries it makes me look super popular and as though people like me (and Tinker Toys) which makes me feel all warm inside and may eventually net me a lucrative book deal or something like that.

* Not the fancy tracks which fall apart, although a few lengths of the plain old track can be entertaining.   Just the cars.

**Not an endorsed activity, I’m just saying.

*** Oh, OK, I’ll tell you now because this post hasn’t yet exceeded 2000 words and I pretty much never post anything that’s less than that because I am totally incapable of editing myself when I’m blogging.   Tinker Toys.    So as you probably know, our little family includes The Stepson, who is almost 12 and also autistic, which has not much to do with this story except that one of the hallmarks of autism is a tendency towards repeating oneself and repeating the same “joke” which may or may not be funny until your stepmother completely melts down into a giant puddle on the floor of weeping and teeth-gnashing.    One of the things that recently became the object of repeating was the phrase “CRUSTY CRACKERS” which The Bun, being four and although not autistic, also partial to repeating things, has now begun repeating to fill any silences.   Luckily, it’s rarely silent, but honestly?   The words “crusty” and “crackers” are now not permitted for use in this household, not that anyone listens to my wacky “rules” that I’m insane enough to think I can enforce.   A few weeks ago, for no reason that I can ascertain, The Stepson began referring to anything that The Bun was playing with as a Tinker Toy.   Neither knew what a Tinker Toy actually was, but the tone in which “Tinker Toy” was delivered was disparaging, so “Tinker Toy” became an insult that resulted each time in a bunch of weeping and agonizing about the Tinker Toy nature of whatever it was that The Bun loved so much but now had to disdain because The Stepson thought it was a “Tinker Toy”.   I don’t know if I’m explaining it well, but the whole drama took on dangerously annoying proportions because, guess what?   TINKER TOYS ARE AWESOME, THEREFORE THE PHRASE “TINKER TOY” CANNOT BE USED AS AN INSULT!   Even after repeated requests, begging, shouting, and imploring, The Stepson continues to call everything The Bun is playing with a “Tinker Toy” and now The Bun actually owns Tinker Toys such that he knows that “Tinker Toy” cannot possibly be an insult and therefore even though we have to listen to the words Tinker and Toy over and over and over again, at least they aren’t followed up by crying and whining.   At least, that’s the plan.

Update!

If you want an extra two bonus entries, write a short blog post about this giveaway using this sentence (and including two links): All Children’s Furniture, which offers everything from kids chairs to toys, is sponsoring a TinkerToys giveaway on ispuddle.com. If you do this, please send me the link.

Filed under: Five Thing Friday, Giveaway