It's Gay Ski Week here in Aspen, which means seven days of festive parades, flamboyant Karaoke performances, and late-night rendezvous in the gym saun...er, perhaps I've said too much.
Gay Ski Week also signifies the middle of January, which means it's time I get off my ass and offer up a review of the boy's bounty from his very first Christmas.
As with any Christmas at any age, some of the gifts turned out to be winners, while others...not so much. So if you're currently expecting or just looking for ways to entice children into your gingerbread house, take note.
Chico Baby Walker
Here's a little secret about being a parent for the first eight months or so: it ain't that bad. And it ain't that bad for one -- and only one -- reason: your kid can't move. So long as you don't leave lit fireworks or a heaping bowl of rat poison within a three-foot radius of wherever you set your little one, you can rest assured he or she will probably be just fine.
Limited mobility translates into ample opportunity for half-assed parenting. You can read a book, watch TV or cure beef jerky in your guest room while all the while remaining secure in the knowledge that your kid is rendered stationary by his still-developing musculature.
The idea is, the eight months it takes an infant to start crawling should afford new parents the necessary time to make peace with the fact that they're solely responsible for another life, to let go of the last vestiges of their inherent selfishness, and to be ready to put the remote down and focus. That's how nature intended it.
But like the inventor of the seatbelt, some meddling egghead decided to play God and speed up our kids' progress. As a result, parents are forced to harness their attention before they're mentally prepared. This is how accidents happen.
As you might guess by the name, the walker grants kids unlimited mobility long before they've earned the right. They can now move forward and back (though not side-to-side or back in time), instantly quadrupling their potential for household destruction or self-inflicted harm while proportionately decreasing the amount of your day you can spend dicking around on the internet.
Thanks Santa!
Parents Baby Teething Keys
Now here's something I can get on board with. Cliché as it sounds, it remains true that even with a room packed with expensive toys, your kid will only want to play with the one thing they're not allowed to touch, whether it be your cell phone, Ipod, or deep fryer.
But it's not simply an annoying trait; this attraction to the forbidden can provide a stumbling block to your child's development if not properly addressed.
As we've learned, the only way to motivate the boy to roll over or crawl is to dangle the proverbial carrot and place something typically off-limits, like car keys, within his reach. That Fisher Price shit won't cut it: the kid's got to want it. That's why these plastic keys are such a brilliant gift idea. Entice your kid with them, and while to you it's nothing more than another toy for them to chew on or walk towards, to them, it symbolizes victory. Unrestricted access to what was once unattainable. Even to infants, the forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
Goodnight Moon
Goodnight Moon is to new parents what Steve Miller's Greatest Hits is (was?) to college freshmen. While starting out foreign, over time many of your peers will extol its virtues enough that you'll start to feel negligent for not owning it. And while you'll valiantly resist where so many before you have caved, inevitably, you'll end up plunking down the $15 bucks to fit in.
Oh, and they both suck.
Goodnight Moon has no no plot. It preaches no lesson. As best I can tell, it's just twenty pages of saying goodnight to random, arbitrary, and in some cases, inanimate shit in some rabbit's rodent-ridden bedroom. Of course, the author is probably lighting a Cuban with a crisp $100 while I'm yammering away on a lightly-read blog, so what do I know.
Of course, your kid will freaking love Goodnight Moon, so prepare to read it to him or her nightly. Here's my recommendation for making it tolerable: read it in your best Christopher Walken voice, like so.
This should be done for two reasons:
1. Everyone should have a passable Christopher Walken impression.
2. Everything is more fun when saying it with a Christopher Walken voice. If the doctor would have only used his Walken voice when he broke the news that I had a brain aneurysm, I guarantee I would have managed a chuckle or two prior to being paralyzed with fear. (As an aside, this concept only holds true for two voices: Walken and Yoda. Trust me.)
Give it a try next time. You won't regret it.
Great Gund Wazoo Stacking Rings
At first glance, the photo above appears to be nothing more than a series of harmless rings of increasing size, designed to teach your kid spatial awareness and problem solving while simultaneously providing something desirable upon which to gum. But remove the rings, and you'll see that the good people at Great Gund have not-so-subtly given your child their introduction to a concept destined to provide a life-long source of sophomoric entertainment, regardless of gender: The phallic symbol!
As you may or may not be aware, penises are everywhere. They're in our architecture...
They're in our national history...
They're even in our golf trophies.
The sooner my son learns that most of life can be traced back to the male genitalia, the quicker he'll realize just how hilarious that is. That way, we can share a laugh together when we're watching football and some repressed analyst gets a little Freudian with a telestrator.
So in summary, skip the walker, get the keys, burn Goodnight Moon, and collect as many penis-shaped toys as humanly possible. Your kids may not walk until they're four, but I guarantee they'll have one hell of a sense of humor.
