Baby Toys
by Lore Sjöberg

Stacking Doughnuts
I always had a vague sense of disappointment that these weren't actual doughnuts, but what the hell, they're pretty satisfying to gnaw on anyway. The tapered pole is a little fascist, I should be able to stack them small-to-large if I want, but if that gets too frustrating, they also ricochet in a satisfying manner when thrown. B-

Busy Box
Or whatever these things are called. I'm referring to the Infant Central Control Panel with the honk button and the spinning barber pole thing and the dial that makes the clicking sound and the crappy hazy mirror but what do you care you're a baby it's not like you need to apply mascara or pimple medicine and the thing that jingles when you spin it. It's a heady experience. I don't know why executives in need of desktop amusement don't just get one of these. I guess it would just be weird to go "Squeek! Squeek! Dammit, Anderson, where are those quarterly reports? Honk! Squeek! Ding!" A

Puffy Vinyl Books
I don't know whether this really counts as a toy, but that's why it's waterproof; babies don't discriminate among toys, books, food, and random items that must be pounded on while yelling. So baby items tend to be universally colorful, stain-resistant, and reasonably durable. Puffy vinyl books are all of the above, plus they usually have some sort of baby animal theme. C

Gloworm
It's this thing you hug and the face glows. That's all well and good, but what happens when the child grows up and needs to learn that it takes more than a hug to make a loved one's face glow? It takes commitment and tolerance and a superhero-esque radiation accident and these are the values infants these days are sorely lacking. C-

Shape-Matching Ball
These are sort of like Perfection without the time limit. If there was a game called "Adequacy," it would be like this. I guess circa one year is too early to expect perfection at anything besides drool bubbles, and precious few retain their mastery of those into adulthood. That may be due to a lack of drool-related challenges coming from the minds at Milton Bradley. I may be thinking about this too hard. C