My kids came home from camp last week with Ziploc bags full of "Goo." That's right, the very camp that I have given up all summer luxuries in order to be able to send my kids to sent them home with a mysterious substance promising nothing but mess and headaches.
I mean, seriously, couldn't they keep that shit at camp where it belongs? It's the equivalent of giving a preschooler a drum-set as a birthday present. You just don't do it. Period. What else don't I want other people giving my children? Read on.
1. Play Doh. My kids love making spaghetti and snowmen and ice cream out of it. I don't so much share their enthusiasm as I scrub it out of carpets and seat cushions for weeks after.
2. Musical instruments. Unless it's a silent instrument, keep it at your own house, please.
3. Slime. A relative of goo, but even more messy. If that's possible.
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4. Legos. There is no pain like that of stepping down, full weight, on a Lego at 4 o'clock in the morning. It's enough for me to outlaw them entirely from the house.
5. Microphones. As if my kids aren't loud enough, without the aid of an instrument.
6. Anything that requires assembly. Unless, of course, you plan on doing the assembly.
7. Toy guns. I tried really hard for years to keep guns away from my boys until I caved with a water gun. Shortly after, a neighbor gave my son a gigantic Nerf gun and life was never the same. Do what you want in your own house, but keep guns away from my kids, thank you very much.
8. Anything involving food. Easy-Bake Ovens aren't that easy and always result in me having to make a real batch of brownies (that aren't baked by light bulb).
9. Puzzles with a million pieces. Because little puzzle pieces seem to mate with socks and disappear in record speed.
10. Anything you wouldn't want your own kid playing with. Of course.
Did I miss anything?
Image via Scary Mommy


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Comments 94
I sure HOPE you hate me! Besides the guns, EVERYTHING else on your list I actively buy &/or make for my THREE year old... I'd delight in the goo!
What I don't want? Designer clothes that are itchy. COMFORT please for my boy!
We love playdoh, and any other item that has more than one usage. I am not a big fan of toys that only serve one purpose: pushing buttons and making noise. If people want to spend their resources on my child, I kindly ask them to avoin un-imaginative toys if possible. Clean-up doesn't scare me, so we often do get tons of art supplies, and I LOVE it when my toddler gets musical instruments (even drums). Anything that we can play together is fine by me! I guess "to each his own"....
Glitter.
Caps was necessary because people STILL don't get that half these list articles are MEANT TO BE FUNNY.
Most of the stuff on the list, I play WITH my son. Yeah...I hate play doh, because he picks it apart and the little crumbs dry out so fast, but hey...he loves it and it incourages imgaination, and that's more important than having to clean it up. Legos are awesome and also incourage imagination and other important skills. The stuff that requires assembly are the coolest toys. They are, that is, if the parent isn't too lazy to assemble it. The only thing I really agree with you on is the toy guns...unless they're water guns. But toy guns are a no no.
I agree with 4mutts on moon sand or whatever the heck it's called. It's a terrible product. Playdough and I are on great terms currently and I prefer any instrament to a toy that requires only the push of a button to play a 30 + second song. We had a terrible barbie guitar that played 2-3 different songs My dd would litteraly walk over, push the button and then play with something else on repeate all day.
Wow. I Would hate to be one of her kids. Sounds like a house with no fun.
Nerf Guns...ugh. Cannot stand them. People are always buying them for our boys, so they shoot each other and cry, then leave the little darts laying everywhere for my 11 months old daughter to eat. They now automatically go into the goodwill box (they actually just got two of them this past saturday for their birthday from their aunt....I'll be paying her back at Christmas time with her boys).