Friday was Xavier’s first birthday and Sunday I am going to his birthday party. He’s the spawn of my best friend and her hubby, and the first baby I’ve ever really spent any significant amount of time with since my little sister was born. My sister-in-law is preggo and due in June, and hers will be the first baby in our family since 1984. Small children are not really a part of my life. When people at work bring their babies in and pass them around a circle of cooing coworkers, the sleeping kid always wakes up and screams when someone shoves him into my arms. But I guess since he met me the day he was born and sees me several times a week, Xavier figures he’s stuck with me and tolerates me accordingly.

I went to the store today to buy the kid a gift. What does this baby NEED? He has a plethora of lively, light-up musical toys that I’m sure are supposed to enhance his motor skills and intellectual development. Melissa has piles and piles of play clothes for him, as the little man has four older male cousins. And of course, with all four grandparents living here in town, there’s no lack of cute dress clothes, loud playthings, or savings bonds.

Baby things seem to have gotten a lot more interesting since I was a kid. I saw a pull-along xylophone that looked almost exactly like my old Fisher Price and toyed with the idea of getting it (for myself, not for him). But I, like a year-old baby, was distracted by the flashing lights and clanking sounds of the electronic version. I saw a parking tower that reminded me of mine, with the elevator you had to crank and the cars that had the round holes to fit the play people in and send them spiraling down the ramp at breakneck speeds. This, along with the barnyard set, the Sit’n'Spin and so many other fond memories are still resident in the toy aisle, albeit flashier, sturdier, and more disinfectable than the ones I had that actually had a few cardboard parts.

I disappeared into memories for a few minutes and awoke to find myself still in the toddler toy section, being mercilessly pelted with the giant bouncy balls kept in bins that are far too easily accessible to a pair of four year old boys.

The belligerent children were manhandled into submission by a frazzled-looking woman who I presumed to be either their mother or zookeeper. Since all the toys I remembered were marked for ages 2 or 3 and up, I settled for a piece of plastic mayhem called the Champ Sport Zone or something similar. It has a basketball that, when dropped through the net, rolls down a chute and sets off some cheering noise. There is a baseball on a lever you can push around and make stadium music, and a football that does something loud when you spin it. It reminds me a little bit of the presents the Who-kids got in Whoville in the Grinch story.

And then they’ll make earsplitting noises galooks
on their great big, electro-who-cardio-shnooks

So I took it home and played with it. Why should he get to have all the fun?

This was posted on the blog It’s Like I’m… mmmagic! and must be watched. Now.

Someone was watching the printer scene in “Office Space” when they got the idea for this one. Rainn Wilson is such a gangsta in this video.

My Red Stapler has moved to WordPress!

red swingline stapler:
a fear of change, like Milton
but i don’t think so

Prettier now, no? Someone had already taken the “myredstapler” prefix, so welcome to the newly sovereign Red Stapler Nation!

Let’s call this an experiment in boredom, shall we?