Category: Things

The pandemic landed in America at the same moment that my in-law’s tenants gave up their lease.

After a couple of coworkers called in sick in mid-Februrary, I went into exile to minimize the chance of exposing the parents and children to this mysterious disease.

My wife bought an air mattress and hand pump, packed up some groceries, and I was a single man again.

The air mattress lasted about half a year. Kids ruined it by jumping up and down on it. However, the pump (which cost more than the air mattress) has paid off handsomely.

It turns out that when you buy a tool, you’ll find other uses for it.

They used it to blow air on each other’s faces. They played around with the detachable flexible tube that came with the pump, using it like a telescope. I used it to pump up the yoga ball.

And then we got a packet of balloons for my daughter’s birthday.

With the germophobia induced by the pandemic, we quickly realized this was the perfect way to inflate balloons.

Because it was so easy to inflate them, it was also no big deal to deflate them.

For a couple of weeks, the boy would watch me inflate a balloon and then release it, laughing as it bounced off the ceilings and walls, sputtering around the room.

This pump is about eighteen inches tall, a perfect height for children. So the boy has been able to operate it as well.

As implied by the “Double Quick” name, this thing pushes air on both the up and down strokes. It’s endlessly amusing to watch him strain with this thing.

As middle-class parents in a wealthy nation, we purchase many toys that get land with a thud. These wasted expenditures purchases are lottery tickets for amusing our children.

Then life intervenes and a worldwide pandemic forces you to buy the perfect toy that you didn’t even know was a toy.

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We pulled out the pump after storing it for a few months. His face brightened up immediately, and he went right back to inflating and deflating balloons. Some toys are just real, and we’re lucky when we find them.

We bought a fish-shaped, hand-powered bubble machine. It’s an orange piece of garbage with a green hand crank. By avoiding another battery-operated toy, we learned why everyone else uses electricity.

After trying to make the contraption work, we dug up an old bubble wand. As always, blowing bubbles worked perfectly.

It is easy to chase the next new toy, but the old ones are quite sufficient. We just need to remember to play with them.

Then again, this incident highlighted the differences between our two kids.

The girl happily chased and popped the bubbles. The boy insisted on taking the stick and blowing his own bubbles.

For $15, it was a total waste of money and a great bargain for the memories of a balmy summer night.

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It’s been a year since I wrote this post, and we never got it to work. Last week, the kids broke the handle of the crank. I guess this is the official demise of this ill-fated toy. Rest in peace.

We have a toy bird. Talk to it while pressing a button and it repeats what you said, a couple pitches higher.

Unfortunately, the kids leave the darn thing on all day and we’re constantly changing its batteries.

Our boy thinks that is part of the fun. He loves to pull out the screw driver and pop the two batteries into the bird. He knows which one should be pointing positive up and that the other positive goes down.

Yesterday, he decided to put them both in, positive up. Then both positive down.

He looked at me with a glimmer in his eye. He found it hilarious and laughed and laughed.

Finally he put them in correctly, still chuckling at this hilarious joke.

The summer before my thesis semester, I visited a friend in Pittsburg who was just starting graduate school. As two students, the sleeping accommodation in his spartan apartment was a green foam camping pad on the hardwood floors.

No problem, I had spent most of my undergraduate career sleeping on the concrete floors of Wurster Hall because I was a bit insane ’bout that studio life.

This thin inflatable foam pad was a revelation. You’d bottom out if you rolled on to your side, but it was as comfortable as a normal mattress when I stayed on my back.

A couple years later, we tried camping as a hobby and bought a couple of these pads for ourselves. The camping kick only lasted a few months, but we’ve kept them around for the past decade. At $60 a piece, this was a significant purchase in the middle of the Great Recession and they held nostalgic significance.

One can thank COVID for their return to prominence. After reading Guts, our daughter wanted to have a slumber party. With no real options, we held a family slumber party in the spare bedroom. She enjoyed it so much that we repeated it every weekend for a couple months, sleeping on these thin air mattresses every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.

The world has changed a bit from those days as a grad student, but occasionally I catch glimpses that self in the moment.

Now it’s the four of us, navigating a suddenly claustrophobic world.

This is not the tricycle we grew up with. It can function as a self propelled vehicle, but it comes with a handle in the back for an adult to push and steer this monstrosity. The seat has side bars to keep the child contained in the cockpit, a drink holder in the front, an operable shade canopy, and a small storage container in the trunk. The foot petals are geared so that stubborn little feet can’t stop forward movement. This model has hard rubber wheels, but I’ve seen a version with inflated tires.

The thing looks as kludgy as it sounds, especially if you get one with the plastic that has been aged in the desert sun. We bought ours from a family who was moving back to England.

However, this contraption has been brilliant for getting the boy to fall sleep, pushing him in loops around and around the house. Sometimes it will happen in a few magical minutes. Often I’ll get more than thirty minutes to practice walking mindfulness meditation.

Recently, he’s decided that he prefers riding an old office chair, where he can sit proudly on his throne as he heads towards slumberland. But fear not, his older sister will occasionally squeeze herself into the tricycle and zip a few rounds around the kitchen.

I’m impressed with Radio Flyer. They have crafted a nostalgia brand, but they aren’t afraid to throw random things out into the world. These new era artifacts can be quite ugly, especially given wholehearted embrace of plastic.

But if the kids dig it, how much of an argument do I have?

The kids were fighting over the Nerf ball. The girl and I had been batting around the little orange ball, which made it became an object of desire for both of them, even after we had moved on to riding the red wagon around the backyard.

As any parent would do in this time of high stress, I found a colorful O-ball and convinced them trade balls every time we passed the outdoor sink. They acquiesced and we had peace (more or less) for the remainder of their wagon ride, even though they both thought that the orange Nerf ball was obviously more desirable.

I often wonder what the gods must think of us humans and our squabbles. In the moment, the dumbest shit is always the most important issue ever, often becoming deadly serious when adults are involved. Maybe the evolutionary role of religion in societies was to make us think “as-if” we were the higher deity and get us to rise beyond our momentary passions.

However, it seems to have been only partially successful. Religion may have made individuals a little better, but we’re now stuck with conflicts between large groups of humans, each with the conviction they have a supernatural power on their side.

It’s too bad that these tribes aren’t willing to settle for trading colorful balls every few minutes.

These two toys were purchased in quite different fashions. The wagon was bought brand new, online. The Furby was discovered while waiting in line at the Goodwill, on a half-off Saturday.

Both have been sporadic hits.

In Vegas the heat can be unbearable, so the wagon is left unused for months until the kids suddenly decide it is fun to be pulled along, bringing the it back into rotation. In this time of pandemic, it has also been the closest they will be getting to an amusement park ride.

The Furby plows through four batteries at a time and wears out its welcome for adults equally as quick. Even though the kids have always enjoyed it, it too is only played sporadically due to a lack of willingness by the big people. However, I must admit it is beyond cute to watch our toddlery mimic the quirky Furby language.

The joy of thrifting is the hunt; a joy that is unhindered by options. This Furby is covered in a grid of black, pink, and cyan triangles. Not completely horrific, but it was the only choice, so this purchase was free of angst. (In retrospect, my wife and I would have debated this $1.50 spend if we had realized how many batteries this little thing would consume.)

On the other hand, the wagon purchase has always been tinged with a bit of regret. Soon after purchasing this wagon, we saw a collapsible canvas wagon which could be easily stored, unlike this hunk of plastic. After half of decade of pulling children around in molded seats, I think the ergonomics of this Radio Flyer has proven its worth, but for a time we were certain the $70 was not optimally spent.

Even so, we have used both of these quite a bit, more than most of our other purchases. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to guess what toy will catch their fancy until you open up the wallet and bring the thing home.