Toy Story

M. and I have long been determined that we will NOT be trapped into the toy game. We don't have a huge house or a lot of room for stuff. I mean, give the Unnamed One a toilet paper tube and a cardboard box, and let the baby go to town. They don't need all those toys. After all, it works for the cats.

It's an easy decision given all the plastic-ey little dolls and war toys. You can turn you back, and there's nothing to resist because there's no temptation.

Until the catalogs arrive.

You know the ones. The one's that let you know that Mothering Magazine has sold you out. They are filled with the quaint, wooden, high quality toys. They speak to the imagination. They don't market Disney or any other kids' television show.

They are the toys of dreams.

You leaf through the catalog, two or three times, wishing you could be nine years old again, and know that when YOU were a kid, you would have killed...I mean seriously possibly maimed another human being...just to have THOSE toys.

Then you look at the price. Instead of turning your dreams back to that cardboard box and toilet paper tube, you start to mentally calculate what you would have to do to get those toys. You start to imagine the look of joy on that little face. You wonder if maybe working a little overtime might let you get those beautiful toys. You start to think that THIS is what will make you a truly good parent.

All of the sudden you've become what you never wanted to be. You've become all about stuff and the baby hasn't even arrived. And it's scarey. Because this is just the beginning of all the pressure and expectations that will sit on your shoulders as a parent. You start to see that you will never be able to do enough, provide enough or be enough. There will always be something out there you can't give them.

And that's when you go back to the cardboard box and toilet paper tube. The only thing you can give that no one else can give is love and safety and support. That's better than the best toy on earth.