Early this fall, Hayden's school did a Jog-a-thon fundraiser. He raised $100.00-a big thank you to all that contributed. Anyhow, prizes for kids that raised this amount were many: a t-shirt, a playground ball, a whirley thingy, and $10.00 gift certificate to Toys R Us. Well, guess what Hayden's favorite part was. The gift card. So for a week or so he has had this money burning a whole in his pocket. Last Saturday, I took just him to spend it. We had a blast wandering through the toy store looking at stuff. He is just like his dad, very calculating when he shops. After checking out everything in the place at least 4 times, he decided on Aquadots. They are always advertising them on TV, and he has been begging me to get them for at least a month. I was very proud of his decision. It wasn't some dumb toy to be tossed in the bottom of the toy bin by mid afternoon, never to see the light of day again. This was actually something he wanted, something that stimulates creativity, and he pointed out that Sage would like it too. What a guy!
It was a little over his $10.00 limit, but hey, he has been such a good helper to me the last couple weeks that I was willing to help him out with the difference. So we happily tote home our prize and I kid you not, the kid sat down and played with the thing until we made him go with us to dinner, then he played with it until bed. The next day, he played with it all day long. He let Sage watch, and occasionally had a little job she could help with. He loved it. He crafted all kinds of creations with the little colored beads. Its kinda cool, you dispense them from what looks like a minature gumball machine into little trays, spray them with water and then set them under the little fan so they dry and Voila, the beads stick together. He had patterns he sometimes used, but made some pretty cool original art.
We discovered that the finished projects could be broken apart with a little effort and recycled. However, since it was such a hit, and he had just about used all the beads in projects that he didn't want to recycle, I bought him a refill pack yesterday. 750 new beads ready to be transformed into masterpieces!
Then, last night, we are just finishing cleaning up dinner when we turn the news on. There is my buddy, Brian Williams announcing a toy recall: "Children in Australia who have ingested the aquadots demonstrate symptoms similar to people who have ingested the date rape drug GHB. If you have this toy, please take it away from your child immediately." I usually try to keep the kids away from the TV when the news is on, but guess who was right at my side with huge eyes watching that telecast? Yup. He looked at his dad with a face that said, please tell me I heard him wrong. Heath pulled Hayden in close and explained that the aquadots were making kids very sick and we had to take it back to the store because we didn't want him to get sick too. Oh, the tears! He was crushed. We asked him if he had eaten any of them. He said no. Heath wandered aloud what they would taste like, and Hayden promptly responded with, "like soap." I said, "I thought you said you didn't eat them." and he said, "I didn't, I just put one in my mouth."
Great. Oh, and as the little death beads are miniscule, they are scattered about everywhere on the floor. I've swept and vaccumed but they still linger around.
Apparently, the glue converts to a chemical similar to that in GHB when sprayed with water. And since water is essential for using aquadots, poisoning children seems inevitable. What a great toy!
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