Toys of the Generation X .... Generation

Facebook is a bit of a spoiler for writing a blog, or really, like the Cliffnotes version of potential blogs. But despite the fact that my life is pretty boring right now and just revolves around being knocked up, I don't want to write exclusively about that.

I don't know why Gen X toys have been nostalgically bouncing around my brain lately, maybe it has something to do with my current gestational state. But I've been thinking of toys from my childhood that were so fun and aren't really around anymore.

The three that initially popped into my head as in, "Ohhhh yeah, I LOVED that!" were:

- The Hippity-Hop

- The Big Wheel

- The Sit-and-Spin

I figured maybe the reason these 3 weren't really around as much was because I can remember totally wiping out on all of them on a regular basis and now "safety" is such a big word. Though with all three being close to the ground, the crashes were never very dramatic.

The Big Wheel was the only toy that I actually owned myself, coming from the most poverty-stricken family on the block, save for the sole Mexican family (this was Scottsdale in the 80's, there wasn't a lot of racial integration), who struggled to feed a very large household of kids. I had a Spiderman Big Wheel which I deeply adored. Btw, when looking for images of the Big Wheel, most of the images had kids wearing helmets. Pfffff! HELMETS!

Total aside, one of the sucky things about being "the poor kid" is the eternal patheticness you feel when over at a friend's house and how much you yearn to play a game they own and you don't. Not to mention how you are prisoner to their rules on who gets a turn. I had a good friend who owned her own Intellivision (back in the day - a competitor of the Atari 2600), and though she truly was a good friend whom I adored, the truth was, when I was at her house, I BURNED to play the video game. And I would always start off playing other games with her, the whole time in my head thinking, "Has enough time passed for it to be okay to ask if we can play Intellivision? Will she think this is the only reason I'm here?" She always said yes, always kicked my ass, and I always left her house a little happy, a little guilty.



I did find some Hippity-Hops for sale here, reasonably priced, and they even have adult ones! I really wanted to buy one for me and future BabyGirl, but they won't ship to New Zealand and it's too bulky for me to ask someone to ship to me. (Btw, I think the little girl on the Hippity-Hop looks like Catie -- think so, Kim?).


Shannon mentioned the Lemon Twist, which I googled and ended up with several hundred alcoholic drinks and a few photos of this to the right. I do remember this one too.



There's also the wonderful Slip-n-Slide, which was really just a piece of tarp hooked up faultily to a garden hose, in case you want to carelessly fling your youthful torso upon the hard ground, hoping you'll just magically glide along. Should've named it Slam-n-Slide.

Anyone else got some fun, yet deliciously dangerous toys they remember?

Cloth Diapers are from the Devil

After Jenn's comment, I'm a bit nervous about the whole diaper thing...and since many of you have procreated in the past few years, maybe you can let me know how it went for you? (Thanks Pee Pee Sheep!).

Right now we have 5 packages of newborn disposable diapers - one of each brand on the market.

The diaper thing is a bit of a problem for us for a couple reasons. One, we're down to one car now and one income, so the drive to the nearest town isn't always easy or affordable. We wanted to stock up on diapers now so we didn't get stuck without them later and then REALLY be screwed.

The cloth "nappies" used here cost a LOT and seem overly complicated to me. Beau and I are still stuck in the olden days, since we were expecting the basic piece of cloth and safety pins. Little did we know now it consists of an expensive "outer" nappy and then you get like 3 "inserts." Buying more "inserts" is not cheap either. Since apparently a newborn goes through 8-10 nappies a day, it's a big investment for us to start stocking up on these too, especially since the baby will be born in the summer when our water supply, and therefore our ability to do tons of laundry, will be a constant issue.

We were at the enormous Baby Factory this past weekend thinking of putting some things on layaway (or as they say here, "layby"). The manager was giving me a very long, but very informative lecture on all things baby when she stopped in mid-sentence and gasped. Beau was some distance away from us in the diaper section. In his hand was a package of the old-school cloth nappies - he had found some.

"He's not seriously thinking of buying those, is he?" she asked appalled.

"Umm....yes?" (We still thought we would invest in a FEW cloth diapers, just to have them on hand if we ran out of disposables).

"Oh no no!" she scolded and made a beeline for him, me trotting after her.

She then gave us a lecture on the whole cloth diaper phenom and told us that they tend to leak anyway, despite the thick inner and thinner outer layers. She finally relented and said if we wanted to buy one package of the old school diapers, that might not be such a terrible thing, so they could also have other uses like a puke rag or a baby wrap.

Argh, not such a big deal really. It'd be a nice if money and distance wasn't an issue and we could have a nice big stock of both kinds ready and waiting. Ahh well. Thoughts?