Research Toys Before Purchasing

This Christmas, I learned a very valuable lesson: Research toys before buying them!  And I'm not talking about for safety, weight restrictions, or whether or not the toy requires batteries.  Unfortunately, toys now require that we check their design.

Yes, I am one of the parents that purchased Play-Doh's Sweet Shoppe Cake Mountain as a Christmas gift for my daughter.

If you haven't heard about the controversy surrounding this toy, read this. Just know that the set comes with a piece that looks like this:

The extruder tool[/caption]A purple piece goes inside, to push the Play-Doh out for decorating the cake.  Since I love baking, and my daughter enjoys helping, I thought it was pretty innovative until my sister told me about the controversy surrounding the piece.  Yes, I am that naive!

We also shared a good laugh when I told her that sometimes, the Play-Doh would get stuck at the tip because the insert has a flat tip and doesn't go down far enough for all of it to come out of the tip.  Can you guess how I got the residual out when I couldn't dig it out with my nail?  Yep..... As if it was a bazooka, I put my mouth on the smaller end and blew!

While my daughter is clueless, I am now mortified.  When I bought her a toy for Christmas, I had no idea it would be A TOY! Guess who is now checking ALL PARTS of a toy before buying it. Yeah, this parenting thing really brings about some funny moments.  However, I wonder who came up with the design idea and how it made approval. SMH