Chemicals for children

[beetiger]

My sister continues to buy my son more stupid toys that attempt to be hygienic/neat by replacing dirt with chemicals. Ove the last two years she's given him lots of Color Wonder stuff, which replaces colored crayon/marker/paint smudges on your wall with greasy pale yellow chemical smudges. It has the bonus effects of having a second or so delay between what your child draws and what he sees, which makes for oh-so-good visual-motor learning, of not showing what colors the fingerpaints are in advance so they get mixed together and your kid gets furious, of requiring you to continue to buy expensive special paper in order to use the toy, and of having kid art that fades in about six months.

Now she's gotten him a big set of Moon Sand, which claims to be useable indoors by replacing sand+water with sand+some chemical goop that keeps the sand-stuff at roughly the consistency of wet sand. Yech. Still messy, and gods know what's in it. After the whole Aquadots fiasco, I'm not really happy about this.
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I'm feeling incredibly misanthropic today, yet strangely at the same time I'm wanting people to pet me about it.

Comments

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Dear Sis,

Plz to not fill my toddler with weird chemicals that may or may not be hideous nerve toxins that damage his brain development. Plz to buy plain wooden blocks in interesting shapes sans lead paint or similar toxic coloring agents. Or books! Books are always good. Longer play time, more endurance, fewer potential CNS or GI or respiratory side effects. Also less potentially injuring to you or our relationship.

Plzkthxbai.

Yeeeesh.