Spooky Toys

Is it just me or does your toy box come alive at night?

Admittedly I’m talking about the not-so-distant past when the toy box took centre stage in the living area. It was down a level but that didn’t stop me hearing toys going off randomly. It usually happened as I was just drifting off after a night-time feed (the babies – not me) and served as a form of torture to my poor sleep-deprived brain.

The main culprit came in the form of a shape sorting snail, which played out a happy little tune at the push of a button. When it played repeatedly, I assumed the button had got stuck so I got up and removed it from the toy box.

What do you know, just as I was drifting off again, away it started.

I got back up with the intention of ripping out the batteries, only to discover it didn’t have any. The snail was subsequently thrown down yet another level to the garage with the door slammed and where it could play its gay old tune all night long.

I have no idea what the next culprit was but it put me off the song “Oh Susanna” for life.

This was all forgotten until the other day I received a text from a friend saying: “The house is dead quiet, Mayson’s at care, Sasha asleep, when one of Mayson’s teddy’s pipes up and says “Sing with me hahaha” without it having any buttons pressed. Creepy!!”

A year or so earlier we’d swapped our own spooky encounters with kids’ toys. A tune had started up from her three-month-old’s play gym mat one night. She assumed the cat had walked over it but it went off again. After a while she walked downstairs to investigate but there was no cat in sight. Deciding the cat had gone outside, she went back upstairs and, as she did, the music started playing a third time. The tune was a haunting piece from Mozart and she fled back to bed.

Because we’d both recently lost a close family member we did wonder if they were messages from beyond.

Then again, it could be like the Toy Story where all the toys come alive at night time. They just hadn’t factored in an insomniac catching them out.

Since then other stories have come to light: There’s the mother who, as a child, had a Barney the Dinosaur toy which would start up each night saying “Hahaha, I’m a magic dinosaur.” She can still clearly hear those words today and they have the ability to make her shudder. Barney ended up being thrown out the window.

Then there’s the bath toy that freaked out both the mum and dad. “… one night, for several hours it insisted on randomly going off. We kept turning it off, it would seemingly wait till we were about to drift off, then start up again. We ended up opening the front door and hiffing it into the dark!”

So is it spooky or are they just faulty toys? One thing’s for sure, it’s annoying and most of them end up on the lawn.

And as for the snail? I imagine I gave it away to a charity shop and it will now be wrecking havoc on some other poor person’s sleep.

Dummies

If there’s one thing that keeps kids entertained it’s watching a dvd of themselves. The hours of footage from their baby days I’d had compiled onto a dvd to reminisce on in later years doubles as a babysitter by holding them enthralled.

Trouble is it’s hard not to be drawn to it yourself as the startling sight of younger versions of you and your family leap off the screen. But any depressive thoughts of this reality are quickly overcome as, with relief, I realise I now have a volume switch for the incessant crying that suddenly fills the house.

I don’t know whether it’s the surround sound amplifying the assaulting noise or just the fact my ears have become unaccustomed, for the howling duet by my beautiful baby twins sounds like a symphony orchestra gone wrong.

How did we live like that during those years?!

Oh I remember. Our volume switch came in the form of a plug – a dummy to be more precise. But while these small pacifiers bring welcome relief during the day they have the ability to make parents’ lives a living nightmare by night.

Imagine this scenario: Baby falls asleep chomping on their dummy (think Maggie Simpson-style), dummy eventually slithers out of baby’s mouth, baby wakes up and begins crying for their dummy. Repeat cycle every half hour.

This, my friends, is called dummy addiction.

Now imagine this happening all night every night and times it by two. Oh and throw in a toddler who is trying to sleep.

It’s a wonder the hallway carpet wasn’t rendered threadbare that year as we took it in turns, stumbling down the hall and fumbling around in the dark for the blasted dummy – that being a euphemised version of the many names it came to be called. It was never located in a logical place – often down the side of the cot or under the pile of blankets. But it was a race against time for fear of waking the other twin who’d probably just nodded off themself after their own dummy mishap. 

Just cut their dummies up, I was told. But I couldn’t bring myself to so, instead, this shattering tedium went on for months, and surviving on only two and a half hour’s broken sleep every night, I was a walking zombie.

Sometimes my wonderful mother-in-law would come and do the night shift, where she’d sit up and not get an ounce of sleep while we locked ourselves in the rumpus room, two floors below, shutting all the doors with the aim of getting a solid night’s sleep. That didn’t work for me – I could still hear them. As it turned out, I needed (and still do) years of training to re-programme myself not to wake. Instead I’d lie there fretting about what was going on upstairs and feeling sorry for my mother-in-law.

This torture continued until I read about glow-in-the-dark dummies. Why hadn’t someone told me about these before?! It made finding their location much easier but, eventually enough was enough. I’d steered clear of attaching their dummies to their sleep suits with a clip fastened to a short ribbon as it was a big no-no but I couldn’t see how the ones we had could be a hazard so that was what I did. They soon cottoned on that they could now easily locate their own dummies and everyone was a lot happier.

They kept their dummies (for sleeping only) until they were nearly three and eventually bit holes in them so I got them to say bye-bye and chuck them in the bin.

And that was the end of that – no one ever looked back.

You’ve probably worked out by now that it’s not a good idea getting your babies addicted to dummies. However, that’s all in the past and my three have slept through the night for years.

… If only I could.

Bag Of Tricks

When my first-born was eight months it occurred to me that my hand bag was no longer my own.

Dummies, rusks, spew cloths, bibs and all manner of toys were now crammed into every nook and cranny of my oversized bag.

I liked to call it my bag of tricks. At an early age my son ditched the glorious sleeping-in - public phase and, although a typical male who couldn’t stand my attempted shopping sprees or lunching with friends, he insisted on staying alert throughout the entire outing making the experience a misery.

As a result I turned into the ultimate power-shopper. Here’s how a typical shopping trip unfolded:

I park the car and place baby in the stroller. He looks around excitedly at the new surroundings he has magically materialized into. We set off at a fast pace.

First destination, the chemist – my third home after the supermarket. A fair amount of cooing from the shop assistants later, and we emerge relatively mild-tempered.

Second destination, baby shop (one of my other many homes), but enroute, himself starts to make noises so we divert to the pet shop to marvel at the tropical fish.

Once out the door the grisly mono-drone kicks in so out comes my first trick – toy number one.

This buys five minutes while his attention is diverted, however, the five minutes is up as we make it to destination two’s door. Out with toy number two.

A frantic fly around the merchandise, a few quick purchasers later and baby is getting scratchy again. Out comes toy number three and we head off. However, I am becoming aware of a rather unpleasant smell so it’s a prompt u-turn toward the public toilets.

A swift nappy change and gleeful giggles later and baby is one happy chappy but once he’s back in the stroller, the mono-drone restarts.

Time for my trump card – the rusk. I unfurl this magnificent pacifier from its wrapper in front of baby’s eager eyes and outstretched hand. He grabs at it… and in his enthusiasm… knocks it to the ground. One down.

Sighing I surrender my back-up, and last resort, and know my time is nearly up. He brings it to his mouth and chomps away for a few pleasant minutes. In a last-ditch effort I take this opportunity to swing the buggy round and make a run for the welcoming sight of Glassons beckoning from the distance.

Inside I wrestle the wide-wheeled stroller around narrowly-situated clothing racks, apologising as we run over someone’s toe. I spy a prospective purchase, head towards the changing rooms, and… right at that moment, baby throws his rusk.

I knew I was pushing my luck.

It’s rusk overboard and I’m all out of tricks. Ditching the clothing item and, with a wistful glance over my shoulder, I’m homeward bound with a now wailing baby in my arms.

It was back home to restock the bag of tricks ready for the next week’s attempt.

It dawned on me recently that my bag is, once more, my own.

… Well, that’s aside from a couple of nappies, wet wipes, raisons and a spare pair of toddler knickers.