Toys

Well, don't we all need a bit of cheering up? Christmas has come and gone, the piles of wrapping paper swept away, the toy boxes turned into cars, or trains, then stabbed with pencils, jumped on and left out for the bin men. No more threats that Father Christmas will pass by our house if the Kids don't stop shouting, jumping off the sofas or running sophisticated phishing scams on the Internet. All is back to its humdrum mundanity.

Except, of course, in my household.

The Girl got a baby for Christmas. Not a real one, obviously. She's not the Virgin Mary. Although saying that, she has a baby, there was no conception and

"What are you going to call your baby, darling?"

"Jesus."

Naturally.

I am quite petrified of this new addition to the household. It's a bit realistic. You can feed it water, it can cry "real tears" (if your tears are made of tap water) and it urinates. Most commonly on me.

"Ha ha! The Girl's baby wee-d on dad again! Make it wee on his head."

It's not enough my children have pissed on me. Now their toys are doing it too. Fortunately for me, it can't vomit.

It can poop, however. Not a joke. It came with it's own supply of "porridge" (honestly, I'm not making this up) which you feed to it, and when you put it on it's potty and press it's belly button, it poops. I have omitted to inform the Girl of this.

Furthermore, it's interactive. We bought a horse for it (since no baby is complete without a horse) and when the baby gets near to it, it neighs and makes carrot crunching noises or (bizarrely) sings the name of the manufacturer. Checking the brochure, you can also buy a "magic potty" (two words that rarely go together in my experience) and a moped.

Drink that in for a moment. A moped. For a baby. I'm guessing someone was on crystal meth when they pitched that one.

The Boy got a Nintendo DS. Because we're tight arses, he's playing my old GBA games on it - his favourite of which is Tony Hawks Underground. Although the Boy is a bit confused and keeps referring to it as

"Steven Hawking underground."

Which would make a rather different and somewhat more disturbing game I feel. Still, you can understand the confusion. One may be a skateboarder and the other a theoretical astrophysicist, but they're both on wheels.

I was quite glad he liked that. I was pleased that he wasn't playing something more violent (although admittedly the most extreme violence you get in Nintendo games is Super Smash Bros). I felt this way right up until I heard him say to the Girl;

"And if I do this he falls over and leaks blood... I'll do it again.... Hahahahahahaha!"

So somehow he's managed to turn a skateboarding game into Faces of Death.

To top off the toy based weirdness, the Girl had a muttered conversation on a toy mobile phone today and when I asked who she'd been speaking to she said;

"The baby-our-Lord-Jesus' mummy."

Now, as I've mentioned before, we're not particularly churchy in my Family, so this was a bit odd.

"The baby Jesus' mummy?"

"The baby-OUR-LORD-Jesus' mummy."

"Oh. Right-o. What were you talking about?"

"My baby is having a sleepover at the baby-our-Lord-Jesus' house."

"I see. Your doll has a play-date with Jesus?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"Spain."

Brilliant. So she's come out of the psychotic phase and now become a religious zealot.

This sort of thing doesn't appear to happen to other people.