Balloons

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Balloons are an intrinsic part of childhood.  Balloons mean birthday parties, fun fairs, or even handy tools for getting honey!

Every time a child sees a balloon he imagines a kind of lifelong Lamorisse-style friendship where the two will be an inseparable pair, or perhaps he dreams that the balloon will carry him away on a marvelous adventure.

But in reality, a balloon serves as a lesson in the fragility of our existence, a gravity-defying memento mori that we give to children in order to remind them of the pain of unrequited love and the futility of attempting to hold onto our dreams.

Let me elaborate.  The trajectory of the average helium balloon is similar to that of the carnival goldfish: you get one for cheap (or free), and at first, it's delightful.  It catches the eye, it moves and sways, it's shiny.  Other children pass by eyeing it enviously, begging their own mothers to get them one, too.  You are on top of the world.

But then you realize what a burden your new prized possession actually is.  Much like a high schooler who's been assigned a raw egg to treat like a baby, you quickly learn that you can't really do much while holding this thing.  Where can you even put it safely in the car for the drive home?

And when--not if but when--if the balloon goes "belly up," so to speak, and floats off into the ether, or hits a lightbulb and vaporizes, or simply runs out of air and loses its will to live, you are devastated.

You wonder why you even kept it around as long as you did and didn't just go straight to getting a cheap thrill off using the helium to sound like "The Laughing Gnome."

Lesson learned:
If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it probably wasn't a balloon.

Purchase your own inflatable child-depression device here

The Island of Dr. Moreau's Misfit Toys, Part 2

Earlier I wrote about the Alien Giraffe phenomenon in children's toys.  (Giraffes have horns in real life, not antennae.)  Since then, I've noticed another curious trend: animals with dog noses.

Dog noses look something like this:

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Now, that's a dog nose on an actual dog.  Dogs can and should have dog noses; it is normal, and good, and cute.  But you know what doesn't have a dog nose?

A goat.

For comparison, here's what a goat nose really looks like:

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Not the same.

The goat isn't even that egregious, but how about an even more familiar barnyard animal?

Here is a bull...

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 And here is a bull with a dog's nose and cleft lip:

Now, look to the left of the bull.  See that monkey?  Its nose looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Let's compare:

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Close enough.  But now you know what's coming, don't you?

 Monkeys with dog noses: 

the link that should have stayed missing.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much of the children's toy manufacturers.  After all, we've read about the exploits of Curious George for decades without ever quibbling that he's a chimpanzee and therefore a type of ape, not a "curious little monkey" after all.  Perhaps childhood is not the time to debate zoological taxonomies, or even basic realities of what animals are and what they do; after all, this is a time when a lion and giraffe can be BFFs.

Lesson learned:
Nothing's quite as heartwarming as a cold, wet nose.

Get your own dog-nosed monkey teether!

Tinny tune adventures

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One of the things I've discovered as a parent is that kids' stuff tends to play music--and I use that term loosely.  Whether it's a mutant stuffed animal or an infant swing, you can bet that if you turn a knob, squeeze it, jiggle its foot, or whatever, it's going to have the capacity to play a tinny MIDI tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" ad infinitum, and you're soon going to start hearing these ditties on a loop in your sleep, maybe even accompanied by dreams that you're driving an ice cream truck... to Hell. 

I feel like the makers of these toys are perhaps conducting some kind of covert psychological testing on new parents--something like the Stanford Prison Experiment, where the prisoner-parents cease to remember who they are or why they're there, knowing only that they are hearing "It's a Small World After All" for the five hundredth time and maybe even starting to think they like it.  It seems the folks over at Sterling Cooper Fisher Price have become masters of the earworm, selecting only songs more insidiously catchy than "Chili's Baby Back Ribs" and more inane than "MacArthur Park."  And while I've already explored the beautiful dark twisted fantasy that is "Rock-a-Bye Baby," I'd be remiss not to mention a few other favorite toddler tunes that have some pretty messed-up messages.

"Alouette"--All about plucking the feathers off a poor lark (Big Bird?), body part by body part.  Second only to "Baby Bumblebee" as the theme song of animal torture aficionados and future serial killers.

"Oh My Darling Clementine"--A miner's girlfriend tragically drowns so he consoles himself by getting busy with her little sister instead.  With its incestuous overtones, a favorite folksong in West Virginia.

"Hush, Little Baby"--Don't say a word.  Because I'm going to buy you a series of inappropriate and ill-thought-out gifts, and when they all inevitably break, or die, I'll throw more money at the problem in hopes that you'll love me.  The ballad of the absentee father?

Lesson learned:
Cheer up!  At least there are "cigarette trees" to look forward to in "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," so it's not all bad.  (Well, until you're "buggered sore," that is...)

Buy 100 Singalong Songs for Kids CD

The Island of Misfit Toys

Now that I'm a parent, I often wonder what future blog fodder I might be exposing my child to.  Of course, I'm not going to be reading any Uncle Arthur stories at bedtime, and I won't be popping Return to Oz in the DVD player expecting Bert Lahr's jowls to be the scariest aspect of it, but it seems as though a certain amount of childhood trauma is inevitable.  This truth has recently been driven home for me since I've started having nightmares about alien giraffes.  Let me explain why.  First, a quick review--

This is what a giraffe looks like:

Note the horns.  (image via)

However, this is what a giraffe looks like on children's goods:

G: Giraffes have spots.
A: And, apparently, antennae.

 Here are a few other examples of the Alien Giraffe phenomenon:

 

And the weirdest one of all... the giraffe who was in a horrible spill at a chemical factory, and as the ooze pooled around his mangled feet, was transformed into this monstrosity:

Once you start noticing it, you'll begin to see hideous, smiling Island of Dr. Moreau-type creatures everywhere you look.  

To wit:

Front legs attached backwards, or the knuckle-walking monkey (

not ape, note the tail) that evolution forgot?

A zebra with a dog's nose, or the white tiger that ate Roy--with a mohawk?

Then there are children's clothes.  Sometimes they have very helpful instructions embroidered on them:

(A useful reminder about reducing the risk of SIDS)

And sometimes, they offer really terrible advice:

What's next?  A romper with rattles that says "Shake me," a onesie with soccer balls that says "Kick me," or a footie pajama set with frolicking lambs that says "Marinate me, roast me until tender, then serve me with mint chutney"?

Lesson learned:

At least if you catch the mutant giraffe toy moving, you can kill it.

Buy your own Mutant Giraffe.