Toys toys toys!

There are so many toys out there! And I have to confess that I love toy shopping. We're coming up on both the kids' birthdays, and my brain is starting to sort through all the gift possibilities. Living in a small house means we need to be thoughtful in the toys we keep around. Nothing too big, nothing that can't be easily stored away.

One of the coolest things about having children is getting back some of that childhood excitement. When Esme or Emil get presents, I feel their butterflies. At the same time, there are so many considerations when selecting toys. Emil puts everything in his mouth, so we have to keep all choking-sized toys put away. Then there are the annoying toys that beep and buzz and make electronic noises. Of course, real instruments are fine with me. A kid banging on pots and pans doesn't chip away at my sanity like a bad recording of a bad song on a never-ending 5-second loop does.

But should toys also be educational? And what does educational mean? I think that the best toys for 3 and under offer developmentally appropriate challenges for their fine and gross motor skills, adding other concepts like shapes and colors as they go. A classic wooden shape sorter is a favorite in our house. Puzzles are also extremely popular. But then there are the "pretend" toys, which are great, too. What we try to avoid are toys that come "packaged" with a story already. So characters from TV, for example, have a history that comes with the branded toy. This limits the child's imagination, so I try to avoid Disney-style toys.

Of course, it has come out recently that many of these toys may be health hazards for our children, too. Most of the mass-produced, Chinese-manufactured toys that have been recalled due to lead paint concerns are these big brand, plastic toys. If you have toys like this in your house, you might want to test them yourself for lead, since you can almost guarantee that they won't discover/recall all the toys that have lead. The recall is just the tip of the iceberg - it's more likely that there is systematic use of lead in Chinese-made toys. There is a company called LeadCheck that provides simple swabs for surfaces, costing $18.45 for an 8-swab test kit.

This means that there is more reason than ever to choose more simple, artful toys that are not branded and mass-produced in China, but rather are handcrafted from organic materials. Some of my favorite stores are online, including Hearthsong and Oompa. Emily also keyed me in to Nova.

All this typing about toys has gotten me excited. I'm going to do some surfing now to decide what little gifts Esme and Emil are going to get to mark a new year of life!