Playtime for All Ages

I grew up playing with these guys.

Little People by Fisher Price Toys.

They were pretty awesome.

We had the boat, the Sesame Street house, and an entire brown grocery sack full of the people, cars, animals, and furniture. We had the biggest collection of anybody I knew. My sisters and I spent countless hours playing with them, which I now recognize as the blessed gift from God those hours were to my dear mother.

Anyway, my own children are now playing with Little People toys as well.

A whole new generation of little families and animals have been produced for the entertainment and delight of young children.

The basic premise of the toys remains the same, but I couldn't help but notice a couple subtle differences.

First, just to remind you again, here's what the people I played with 25 years ago looked like:

And these are the little people of today:

Am I the only one who sees the slight difference in health and fitness? Do today's Little People look a little more, uh, "husky" to anyone else? It is a very sad thing when even our toys in this country are unhealthy.

But, regardless of the definite decline in health of these toys, one thing has remained the same...

they STILL hurt like crazy when your sister hurls one in your face.

And Daddies can STILL make up completely inappropriate and double meaning commentary. Kind of like Pixar has all those little jokes buried cleverly in their dialogue so adults will enjoy the films, too. It's quite entertaining, actually, but at some point we will have to stop. After all, our oldest is nearly nine years old and will begin to notice comments like,

"Daddy stood on top of his roof and watched his blonde wife ride off into the sunset with the repairman."

"He then was ready to jump off and end it all."

"But instead, he found a new friend and forgot he was sad."

I had to stop Daddy at this point in the story.

Yeah. These are not really appropriate 'let's pretend' topics for play with young children. They don't notice a thing, though. Don't bat an eye or flinch whatsoever, they just carry on with their high-pitched commentary and interaction between chickens and farmers and whatever else Little People they can get their hands on.

You know how you used to share private jokes and moments of connection with your spouse before kids? Well, this is what those moments eventually evolve into when you're parents. We're still enjoying those private jokes and sharing secrets, it's just changed a little so that it's now based around children's playthings. Frankly, it makes the time bearable when you feel like you might permanently speak in a squeaky voice if you have to make your Little People person talk like that one more time.

It's a coping mechanism, really.

Same holds true for reading bedtime stories, which we do a lot around here.

Sadly, now that the girls are getting older, we have had to tame our wild and completely inappropriate stories. It's probably not the best idea to read "Goodnight Moon" and change it around so there's a nuclear blast and the moon is blown to smithereens and falls into the little bunny's bedroom, killing the Granny Bunny and setting the house on fire.

Yeah. That's probably a thing of the past now that they can comprehend some things.

But, we still have fun with it. It's like a date night, actually. Communication in secret code which only tainted and cynical grown ups like us can understand. To the little ears in our midst, it sounds just like mommy and daddy being funny and laughing and they don't care because they're getting sweet snuggle time. Everybody loves snuggle time, right?

So, to recap:

Our toys are getting fat.

Daddies are especially good at double meanings when they play pretend, making it fun for kids and adults alike. Betcha can't possibly guess the commentary that went along with this one when one of the girls set up the horses like this:

Watch out for nuclear blasts which will blow up the moon and your Granny.