Dear Toy Manufacturers

Dear Toy Manufacturers,

You may have teams of people specialising in designing the latest product to delight little ones enough to beg their parents to buy it as a Christmas gift. However, after about a week, these wonderful devices are left piled up in the toy box while the children go back to playing with things around the house they otherwise shouldn't.

I have an idea. Why not try and replicate the curious games kids invent for themselves. I guarantee it to be a money-spinner. Here's some that my 15 month old and my 4 year old will find enthralling:

Opening and closing cupboard doors. 
Why not invent a life-size cupboard door that doesn't trap fingers and fits over your usual kitchen doors.  Also works with washing machine doors, the toilet lid and drawers on rollers.

Stairmaster.
Real life stairs with Velcro and automatic air bag at the bottom of the stair case should they fall.

Pebble in the cup.
A non-toxic, anti-choke pebble and a normal cup. The objective is to fit the pebble in the cup, take it out then do it all over again.

Dear Toy Manufacturers

Why I Can't Hold In My Wee & Other Stories

Before I had kids I switched off to women moaning about their bodies falling to bits after babies. I mean, don't we all know that childbirth is a massive thing to put your body through? Obviously not by what I kept hearing but you can now include me in that list. Despite me thinking I knew it all, I was still surprised.....typical.

When you're growing a baby inside you it seems like every other person likes to 1. touch your bump 2. tell you about sleepless nights and 3. share their post-pregnancy body woes with you. The fathers tell you about lack of sleep. The mums talk about nipples, wobbly bits and the pain of childbirth (the latter in whispers). One tipsy mummy, on a well deserved night off at a family gathering, declared to me (6 months pregnant) the pain of childbirth is the 'closest you'll get to feeling like you're dying with actually dying'. Not only did she leave me speechless, in my case, she turned out to be wrong.

Why I Can't Hold In My Wee & Other Stories