Baby its cold outside…

Posted by Dad…

Have you heard the joke about the golfer who played all year round? He had blue balls for playing in the winter.

Umm, errr, OK, don’t tell Zoe that one until she is 30.

Tracey, Zoe’s intrepid mother displayed her otherworldly and superhuman maternal instincts by spending literally weeks checking all of Zoe’s existing toys, researching safe companies and in general utilizing the Interweb to become one of Cincinnati’s foremost authorities on infant toy safety. After days of mysterious rattles, blurps, bleeps, words, colors and other scathing protestations from the battery operated prospective landfill contributions, our house was deemed child-toy-safe.

All of this occurred under my blithely lackadaisical watch as Zoe entertained me by finding alternate sources of non-FDA approved nourishment:

• remote controls, hair brushes, plates and anything within reach on the coffee table
• CAT FUR
• several minutes were spent removing the just-reinstalled-for-the-umpteenth-time child-proofing corners off the coffee table and munching happily away, oblivious to the dangerous eye-socket shaped wooden corner mere inches away from her Intellitainer and her head
• dirty CAT FOOD bowls
• swimming backward on the floor in her rudimentary attempts to crawl toward her toys, instead finding a tiny missed piece of a broken CD case, itself deliciously enrobed in a fluff of random dust bunny underhand and instantly transported to-mouth
• CAT LITTER (o.k., not yet, but we are awaiting that one with baited breath, although the recipe’s picture sure looks good)

Hours at a time slipped by and morning turned to noon, night and morning again as Tracey read, clicked and linked, pausing occasionally only to feed Zoe or refuel herself with a bourbon and Coke. Tracey segregated all the potentially offendingly dangerous toys in the house. She also discovered exciting sources for new safely manufactured ones to fill the crib, living room and any other underutilized corner of the house not currently overrun by Zoe-bilia (or Zoe-bile).

Hell bent on ensuring that Zoe gets only the best pseudo-synthetics on which to teeth, Tracey came upon one of the oldest and safest toys manufactured in Europe – Sophie, a natural latex rubber giraffe teething toy from a company named Vulli, who lovingly makes these in the clean, fresh French Alps.

Immediately, the Amex card came out and Sophie was on her way.

Further research into Vulli revealed that Sophie, designed in the early 1960’s, had some fascinating friends. Like a mashup of Smurfs, Teletubbies, Swiss designers and liberal amounts of Europe’s finest hallucinogenics, Vulli also Created Chan Pie Gnon – a take on the French word for Mushroom.

Chan for those not in the know (pictured above with an upside down Sophie and right side up Zoe) is the blue nipple headed mushroom from Vulli. As most mushrooms tend to be phallic, I invite you to submit your own interpretation of mushroom sexuality, transsexuality or asexuality in the comment section below.

As for us in the Buchwald house, it’s not a fun baby chew toy unless it is vaguely sexual in the most innocent of ways.

Err, umm strike that last sentence until Zoe is way older than 30.

Hon, do we want our 8 month old daughter chewing on a male/female French latex mushroom with STD wart like freckles, a satisfied half smile and a giant nipple hanging out of it’s head? SURE! Grandma Linda spotted us for Sophie, Grandpa Bill tossed in a tenner for Chan (Don’t tell Bill about this article), who according to Vulli lore is a grandfather too.

The way I hear it, the exchange between Tracey and Ubbe went like this:

• Tracey – Look what I found
• Ubbe – What’s bizarre about having a blue nipple sticking out of the top of your head?
• Tracey – Maybe in France it’s just an everyday occurrence and nobody notices:)

(By the way, Tracey is still fishing for someone to get Zoe Pie and Gnon – hint hint!)

Err, umm on second though, strike this entire article – or maybe we should print it out now and add it to the binder that Zoe can take to her team of psychiatrists and psychological clinicians to explain our innovative and entertaining child rearing techniques…

O.k., enough beating around the bush, let’s just go to www.mushroomexpert.com and peruse the picture galleries… Let the comments begin!