Things that go beep in the night

eBay is a wonderful thing, isn't it? It takes the sting out of the fact that the spud outgrew his lovely Gap trousers 4 months ahead of schedule by allowing me to sell them on to parents of non-Spud babies for whom the size '6-12 months' is not a total fantasy. We have purchased a lot of things from eBay. We would have purchased the Spud from eBay if we could have except I was too busy trading in my last motorbike for him down the local garage.

We sold on his small cloth nappies and purchased medium ones, we bought the door bouncer, a baby bean bag, clothes, a restraining device safety strap for the high-chair, replacement parts for the breast pump (too much information?)... oh, and toys. Toys toys toys.

We laboured, before the labour, under the impression that we would give our little blob the best of the world that raised us as well as the best of modern life. This meant things like: cooking up all sorts of organic goodness (which he is now sick unto death of); bedtime stories (which he unfailingly tries to eat); exposure to wonderful music (most of which makes him cry); no Television (except, obviously, CBeebies so I can cram his open mouth while Makka Pakka fondles his rocks) and, naturally, wooden toys.

Hah! Wooden toys! Hahahahahahah!!!!!

Well it all started promisingly. We were given a little wooden rattle with a bell in it which swiftly became Favourite Toy Number One. Excellent. I then proceeded to buy the lovely 'Squish' toy on eBay which became Favourite Toy Number Two. Fantastic. We then had a visit from friends who bought over a Demon Plastic Noise Box which, unfortunately, became Favourite Toy Number Three and the moment when everything went terribly, terribly downhill. Bollocks. First the wooden toys lost appeal and then, worse, the DPNB could only hold his imagination for a few moments before he tipped it over, chewed on the battery case and crawled over to disembowel our CDs. Clearly, we needed harder stuff.

One day, after a morning spent rescuing our music, putting the batteries back into our remote contols and re-constructing 'Time Out' page by page we were struggling to entertain him in the car when The Frog bought us screaming to a halt in front of a toy shop and in desperation purchased the V-tech baby laptop, here-to-fore to be referred to as The Most Favourite Toy Ever In The Whole Wide World. This bought us moments, nay HOURS of peace and quiet. Or rather, hours of peace and nail-chewingly relentless beeping noises and barely recognisable jazzy, electronic renditions of old nursery rhymes. And thus began a nasty noisy-plastic-toy abuse problem. Plastic toys. That say things. Just kill me.

What, I may ask, WAS I THINKING???? This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful life! Oh. My. God. These things, you know, they trick you into thinking that they've been turned off and then, just as a tired Spud is turning turtle and giving me that cute sleepy-baby-face one of them will go off and he lurches awake with a nipple-tearing jerk. 'Where's the Monkey?' 'Try MEEEEEE'. 'One, Two, Wheeeeee!' 'Boodly beedly bumbly boo boo be do'. It's like the House of The Living LED in here. And they breed. Once you see the effect on your offspring you HAVE TO buy more. And more!! They're so cheap on eBay!!!! Wooden toys? Pah!! I dutifully put the Spud in front of his wooden peg hammer board and just as he's getting interested in having a bash off goes another one 'boodlybeedlybee' and I think it's 'Old Macdonald ' but I really can't tell and he's off, pressing buttons and grasping at the lights.

The worst thing is that there is so much choice in this world of toys that go 'boo' that after three minutes, the Spud has information overload and has to leave the room. And all his toys, wooden or otherwise. In fact, he spent longer playing with a metal bowl full of water in the garden this weekend than he did with all his hell-toys combined.

Tomorrow, I throw them all in the cupboard and start cutting up a giant cardboard box. I bet we'll get days of fun out of that, provided I remember to soak them all in water to shut them up first.