A Little More Faith in Politicians

Yesterday, the Washington State Senate passed the "Toxic Toys" bill, which essentially outlaws children's toys and products with toxic levels of chemicals and heavy metals. Read more about it here.

In addition, my State Senator, Eric Oemig attempted to amend the bill with a requirement that parents and pregnant women be notified of mercury in vaccines prior to their administration. Unfortunately, this amendment didn't make it to the final bill, but I am thrilled he attempted to add it! I already sent him my admiration-filled thank you note.

One real, er, think of your favorite synonym for Asshole, Senator Jim Honeyford, was among those who didn't vote for the bill, after amending it with the following: (From Washington Votes website)

* Amendment offered by Sen. Jim Honeyford, (R-Sunnyside)....to exempt tricycles from the definition of "children's product" under the bill.

* Amendment offered by Sen. Jim Honeyford...to exempt scooters from the definition of "children's product" under the bill.


He also added similar amendments for various guns, model rockets, and "athletic shoes with cleats or spikes". His amendments all made it intact. Now, I can see that guns and model rockets aren't necessarily children's products, but I still don't want my children to wear cleats that have lead in them. (I hadn't even thought about that, so now I'm going to have to get a test kit for my new soccer turf shoes! Damn. I really like those cleats, too! Hope they're lead-free!) Also, in what world is a child's scooter or tricycle not a children's product? No, I don't know any kids with scooters or trikes. Load 'em up with toxins, by all means! Grr.

Senator Honeyfucker, er, Honeyford also tried the fun "I melted down lead to make toy soldiers when I was a kid, and turned out fine!" approach. Uh, maybe, but we didn't know about the toxicity of lead and other heavy metals then. And I don't know how fine you turned out, if you don't know that a tricycle is a children's product. He complained about how he wouldn't have any gifts for his grandkids this Christmas when all the toys are banned. Hey, Senator, you didn't save those toy soldiers you made from melted lead? Those would be great toys for your grandkids! (Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm a bitch, you know!)

Another big thanks to the fine Senators (and the Representatives in the House who passed their version of the bill unanimously last month) who voted for this important bill!

Thomas, Not Again!

OK, Thomas, after the first lead paint recall, your "cheeky little engine" thing was wearing thin. Now, months later, still having not received the replacements for the original toys I sent back due to lead paint, (and that I and my mom and MIL spent a troublesome truck*load of money on!) I see that you're involved in more lead paint shenanigans. Now, I think the "cheeky little engine" is turning into "that bleeping bleepy train!"

Actually, Thomas, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at your parents. Or, rather, the company responsible for making you, or having you manufactured in China and not checking to make sure you and your pals weren't contaminated with lead paint before selling you to a mass market of young kids.

So, have Sir Topham Hatt* tell RC2 Corp. to get on the ball and get this lead paint crap dealt with, because you and your little train friends won't have much of a future outside of the Island of Sodor if this continues!

*Apologies to those who aren't familiar with the characters from Thomas and Friends. Actually, forget that. If you don't know these names, consider yourself very lucky! Then again, I'll take "Thomas and Friends" over that whiny Canadian bastard "Caillou", or those annoying American planes on "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" any day! (See, I have issues will all nationalities of whiny children's programming and toys!)


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Check this site to see if you need to return anything! Better yet, see here for still MORE toys that have been recalled recently. Sigh. I think I need to go through again and make sure I haven't missed any.

We own the Figure Eight set, so now I have to get all the little green bases to signs, as well as all the green maple tree tops and send them all back, since strangely enough, the boys don't keep the pieces all segregated by set and they're all intermingled in the storage bins under the train table.

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UPDATE: A got an email from RC2 Corp., which manufactures the Thomas toys that were recalled. Part of the groveling message of embarrassment and apology about the second big recall in only a few months included a warning that one of the toys sent as an appeasement (my word choice) to angry parents was recalled, too. The company sent out some trains to those affected by the recall. We received one with a note apologizing and promising they were working on safety. Apparently, some who sent in toys that were part of the recall received a train, Toad, that was a part of this latest recall. I can't remember which "appeasement train" we received, but I just searched through our box of trains and didn't see Toad, so I think we're OK. But if we had, I imagine that would make me even angrier!

Now, to give the company credit, they have instituted a new "Multi-Check Toy Safety System" to make sure the toys they manufacture are actually safe to play with. We'll see, RC2.

Off to mail three maple tree tops and four sign bases that may or may not be painted with lead paint. Hey, at least we're already chelating metals from Hutton's body!

Thomas, How Could You?!

Theme of the Week - RECALL!

I saw a recall notice on Thomas the Tank Engine toys listed on several of my email lists over the past few days, and finally got around to clicking on the link to see what was recalled. I guess I had "recall" on the brain, since the lovely Jetta is also due for a service appointment to fix a safety recall. I had received the letter a month ago and filed in away in the "maybe I'll see this again this year" pile of papers in a basket on the kitchen counter. A friend pointed out that my rear tail light was out Wednesday night, which is exactly what the recall was for, so that spurred me right into action...two days later.

Back to the Thomas issue. I entered the link - click here!- and feasted me eyes. Thinking this would be some obscure toy I didn't have, I was a bit surprised. Hmm. I have that one. (Well, Hutton and Harrison have it.) Then another, and another. Out of the twenty-three toys recalled, we own fourteen of them. Twenty if you could the three James engines we have (don't know why we have so many Jameses - he's a prick if you ask me!), and the many stop signs and railroad crossing signs. They were recalled because, "Surface paints on the recalled products contain lead. Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health effects." (from RC2 Corp. press release). Oh, joy. Just what I need, more toxic metals in my home. Well, I wasn't so much concerned about the ones in my home as I was about the ones already in Hutton's brain and other internal organs. Now, I'm concerned about the metals in my home. Every one of those toys has been played with, tough boy style, and have paint chips. Again, just great. I'm seeing a big cleaning session in my future, when I clean up the train table and wipe everything down and vacuum obsessively. Sigh.

So, others of you out there with Thomas-obsessed youngsters, please check around and see if you have any to return. As a Thomas video would say, "Calling all red engines! And some other red and yellow stuff, too. This has caused much confusion and delay!" Not to mention Harrison is not taking too well to seeing the fire station and ice cream factory toys boxed up. Think I'll have to distract him with a movie downstairs.

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UPDATE: After sorting all the leaden trains from the pack, boxing them up and taking them to the post office, I read this on a list: "I checked the numbers on the bottom of each engine listed that we had. It is nearly impossible to see. Black paint on black paint, I think...but it's there." D'oh! After I picked up a Percy lying at my feet and squinting in the light, I saw it. Tiny dark gray letters and numbers on a black background. Crap! So, some of the toys I returned were probably fine after all. Oh well.

My Saturday Morning in Pictures

This morning, I walked into the office/playroom and was greeted by this:

That's right. It's my younger son, Harrison, holding an ear. Fortunately, it's not a real ear, but a fake one, which had been attached to the scary electronic chimpanzee seen here:


We headed downstairs to eat breakfast, and I carried "Vincent" as I'm now calling the chimp, and his ear.

I got out some glue to attempt to glue the ear back on. I thought Crazy Glue would work fine, but Vincent went for the Gorilla Glue, of course.

After gluing, I wrapped some tape around Vincent's head to hold the ear in place. I don't have a great feeling about the "surgery" outcome. Guess we'll see tomorrow when I take the tape off.
Tully checking to make sure everything is OK.
Good Old Boy, Fergus
Sally, with shorter hair on her neck from her own surgery in January
Tully as Window Dressing

My Poor Children

My poor children are not getting any gifts from me for Christmas this year. Aren't I a heartless, uncaring mother?

Well, take a look at these pictures:



And those are only some of the toys. There are more downstairs. And this is after I've cleaned out a lot of what they don't play with.

I got out the Christmas stuff yesterday, so Santa's village has been incorporated into the rest of the Little People toys that are spread out around the room. Hutton likes to hook all the sets together in a circle, but in this case, it's more like a Gordian knot. Last week, I set up the train tracks on the train table, because before that they'd been all over the floor. So, for a day or so, one could walk into our playroom/office without stepping on toys. That's over now, as you can see from the pictures.

Don't worry, though. My poor, poor, deprived little boys will be getting more stuff from Go-Go and Nana (the names their grandmothers have given themselves). The two of them race to get to the Amazon wish list each year and buy everything. Mom (Go-Go) snapped everything up this year, so Nana will have to just wing it.

It's Thanksgiving Time

The week of Thanksgiving has arrived, and that means that Hutton has no school this week. I see a whole lot of TV and Wallace and Gromit playing on Xbox in our future. In fact, Hutton is playing Wallace and Gromit on Xbox as I type this. Oh well. I was a "good mom" for approximately 20 minutes earlier today, when I helped Hutton with his homework -- a page of writing out his name, a page of "color the things that start with G", and a page of cutting out the bees and pasting them on the corresponding number on the hive.

Twenty minutes. That's about right. I could never homeschool my kids, because I know that I can't come up with things to keep them busy for longer than 20 minutes (other than TV and video games, which I don't think count as "schooling"). Yesterday afternoon, I played games with the boys. We played the Oreo cookie game - Matching Middles, Don't Spill the Beans, and Barnyard Bingo before I was bored silly and Hutton had gone back upstairs to play Wallace and Gromit. Harrison would have been happy to play those exciting games for hours more, but I convinced him to let me read him some books instead.

Harrison is currently entertaining himself by putting all the train-related toys in the Thomas toy box. At least he's not doing what he did yesterday morning while I showered: putting every toy in the room, including puzzles, in a big pile in the corner. That's fun to clean up.

Gotta come up with something to do. Maybe lunch out and shopping. Get some more toy organizers and let Harrison go crazy. Maybe some more challenging games, too. Like Candy Land. Don't think the boys are ready for chess just yet. It's not raining, so the park is always an option, too.

We can go to the movies this week, too. Flushed Away and Happy Feet would probably be entertaining for the boys. Don't think they'll go for Casino Royale. Darn. Mommy could use some Casino Royale.