Parenting

A good friend used to put those toys away and tell his kids “Those are your special toys for when grandma and grandpa come to babysit.”

My wife and I were the first ones to have kids in her family. All of her siblings got the loudest, largest, and most obnoxious toys for my kids.

Ever since then I have extracted my revenge with glee and tons of malice.

Every Christmas and birthday since, I search out the perfect toy for them.

As my kids have gotten older I have donated their old, loud, and obnoxious toys to them randomly through the year if I am in the area. I am totally the favorite uncle because of it.

My house has slowly become almost toy free.

Dang. I'm the Uncle who specifically looks for the noisy toys. And glitter - anything with glitter.

She gets stuff they'll let her keep, too, but my obligations as an older brother come before those as an uncle.

That was my parents rule. And it only makes sense as the grandparents are all fucking deaf anyways.

Is Dinosaur Train still a thing? My daughter had Dinosaur Train toys that would talk to each other if they were close enough to each other... except sometimes they would just randomly trigger.

Being woken up by a high-pitched voice yelling, "we're gonna riiiiiiiide the Dinosaur Train!" doesn't scare the shit out of you after third or fourth time.

Some of the noisy electronic toys will randomly make sounds when they are not being played with, to draw the child back to them. Find one of those toys and hide it in Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I recommend covering the speaker holes on the toy with a thick tape (we use gaffer tape, but masking tape or painters tape works too). It really dampens the sound and makes it much more tolerable.

It's revenge for how noisy you were as a kid.

I take it that the last two weeks have been cacophonous for you?

I'm not a grandparent but I have friends with young kids. They always get obnoxious toys that don't require batteries. Until they are old enough to tell what they want that is. I also like getting them fun children books like Marlon Bundo, Go the Fuck to Sleep, etc.

I mean parents are adults. They could stipulate this.

All in favour say "aye"

I don't put batteries in them if I have the choice.