Eyes in the back of my head

I got my first Anonymous comment this weekend. I would have responded to it sooner, but I was so busy watching my sons’ every move that I just didn’t get to it earlier. I finally gave up and threw them in the backyard with a bucket of rusty nails and Nibbles, the neighborhood pit bull.

Geeze. I can’t tell if Anon. is a parent or not. Either Anon. is a parent who is so holier than thou that his/her shit don’t stink, or is not a parent and should really just remember that if you have kids your time is coming. But Anon. does make a valid point. A lot of parents don’t watch their kids and the kids get into dangerous situations and tend to be hellraisers. But, you know, kids are going to get into stuff whether or not you’re watching them. Case in point. A has a bank he got for Christmas over a year ago. That thing has spent more time at the top of my closet than with him. Reason? Last summer he left some coins out and I thought J swallowed one. I was in the room with J at the time. Was I glued to him? Of course not. I think I was doing the dishes when I looked over and saw him with the coins and wasn’t sure if I saw him put one in his mouth (he didn’t, as a trip to the happy little X-Ray showed). But I was right there in the room with him.

As parents, at some point we just have to accept that we can’t watch over our kids every second of every day. It’s just not possible. At some point, you really have to pee (the coffee you slug down to keep up with them has to come out sometime). The Magnetix recall…if I’m buying a toy for either one of my sons, I expect it to be safe. Yes, it has an age limit, but this is the real world. A small piece can escape my eagle eye and be found by the little one. It happens, and who’s to say that isn’t what happened with the child who died after ingesting the magnets? Don’t you think his/her parents are beating themselves up already?

Even older children who know better do stupid things. When A was a baby, I was talking to the owner of a local scrapbook store. She had a story that has stayed with me ever since. Her older son had the game “Hungry, Hungry, Hippos.” You know, the game with the little plastic marbles, and you have to use the hippos to catch them? Well, her son, who was four or five at the time and knew better!, got it in his mind that he was a hungry hippo and proceded to swallow some of the plastic marbles. They were so light that his esophogus was unable to push them down and they got stuck. The ER gave him bread, thinking that would push them down. No. Then water. No. Then an X-Ray showed that the marbles were still stuck, with bread and water stuck above them. It’s getting bad now. So they put him under and yanked it all out. All would have been well and good, but he had a reaction to the anesthetic and crashed. Long story short, he was ok, but kids do stupid things, even with safe toys.

I watch my boys. I have eyes in the back of my head. I have monitors in both their rooms and I have them on when they are upstairs playing. I know stuff will still happen. But I expect and demand that toys be safe and I will continue to post recall information here as I find it.

And one other thing. I’m still going to allow anonymous comments. But if you’re going to post a comment, at least have the balls to put your name to it.