Chaos?!

My living room looks like a clown exploded in it. Lights flash and sounds compete for attention from brightly colored toys all over the room. Stuffed animals lie motionless as if stunned into inactivity by the overwhelming chaos of it all. It is a nightmarish landscape of chairs that giggle and shake, miniature guitars that play mind numbing pop songs with the press of a button, and giant Legos – which I am pretty sure are the building blocks of the devil. I only say this because after you have dug a few out from the bottom of your foot some very non-angelic words spring to mind.

I am probably just jealous; the toys kids have these days are so cool compared to what we had growing up. I had plenty of toys when I was a kid, but the selection just wasn’t there. I loved Lincoln Logs, slinkies, and silly putty. When you get down to it all my favorite toys were just sticks, springs, and gunk.
When we first had Jack we had the idea that we would keep the kid clutter to a minimum; I mean just because you have a kid doesn’t mean that they have to take over your whole house right? We had this wonderful fantasy of us leading a life of quiet sophistication – or at least having one room free from juice stains and doll parts. This wonderful delusion lasted until we unpacked our bag from bringing him home from the hospital.

Things are so different now from when I was a kid. Child safety in the car when I was growing up meant that your kid wasn’t bouncing things off the drivers head, or that they were sitting most of the time so that when you went around a corner they just slid to the other side of the backseat instead of falling over. It was nothing to ride in the back of a pickup truck, and I remember falling asleep a number of times in my mom or dad’s lap while they were driving the car. My uncle Joe would sit his son, Brad, between himself and the gas tank of his motorcycle so he could wedge him in a little to keep him in place. Brad was so little at the time that if he turned his head too quickly his adult sized helmet would just stay in the same position, and he would end up wearing it sideways facing the ear. Many a time Joe would come rumbling up to the house with Brad asleep and using the gas tank for a pillow. It seems crazy now, but it was just the way things were. Now when my son Jack goes into the car he’s strapped into a 5 point harness that a Nascar driver would envy. He has sun screens on the window to keep the glare out of his eyes, and has his own built in cup holder.

I wonder what things will be like for the next generation’s children. Maybe all of the kids will all roll around in giant bubbles that look like enormous hamster balls, or maybe we will learn how to cover the world in Nerf so all of the bumps and bruises of childhood will be a thing of the past. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not, but as long as the kids of the future let me play with their toys I’ll be happy – I have a feeling their toys are going to be amazing.