Kevin Hart & I Discuss Kids These Days…

Kids these days are growing up totally different from how we grew up. Growing up, most of my toys consisted of the outdoors. Whether it was skating, playing jump rope, hopscotch, swimming or riding a bike, we spent a lot of time outdoors. We were SO excited when we received our very first Nintendo game system! Duck Hunt anyone? That was the extent of our games and game systems. Nowadays, kids have every single game system there is out there. I just had a conversation with my friend whose son owns a Wii, XBox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSI, Kindle, Kindle Fire, and now a Playstation 3.  I’m sure as my kids get older, they will also want all of the latest game systems as well.

The toys that we did have growing up, we had to use our imagination in order for them to do what we wanted them to do. Nowadays, kids’ toys do absolutely everything — from the Leap Pad to the V-Reader to the Tag Reader — they think of absolutely everything.  I don’t recall having too many battery-operated toys when I was growing up. But just about everything needs batteries these days. In fact, there are some toys that I prefer not to replace the batteries for. You know…the ones the kids like to play with the most…that make the most noise?! Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to take the batteries out of certain toys when the kids are not around and then act as if it broke. I may or may not have done this on a few occasions. But kids really are smart these days because most of the times, my three and five-year-olds now know to tell me that their toy “needs new batteries”.

Most of the times that I buy toys as gifts, if it calls for batteries I try to get the batteries to go with them. Leading up to Christmas, I saw a lot of people talking about how they were putting toys together or putting the batteries in the toys and programming them before they wrapped them up. But I’ve actually never thought about doing either of those (just including the pack of batteries with the gift). It might have something to do with the fact that the manufacturers of these toys don’t really want them to be taken out of the their packages. Why else would they package them in a way so that it takes longer to take the toy out than it does to assemble it? It drives me absolutely crazy. But it might drive my kids even more crazy having to wait for us to assemble and load the batteries once they open their gifts. So maybe, just maybe, I’ll consider this approach for next time.

Speaking of kids and toys, check out this Kevin Hart video, as he shares about how smart his kids are…

Which approach do you take? Do you assemble the toys and insert the batteries prior to gifting them to your children? Or do you just wait until after they open their gifts to assemble/insert batteries?

If you’re anything like us, you are constantly changing out the batteries for your kids’ toys. As you already know, batteries can get pretty expensive. So my gift to you this holiday season is your chance to win $100 prize pack of Duracell batteries. Just click on the link and enter to win!


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4 Comments

  • Drea
    December 27, 2012 at 12:34 AM

    I too have never thought to assemble/program/insert batteries into toys before wrapping them. Glad I’m not the only one! 😀

  • Brandi
    December 30, 2012 at 11:49 PM

    Duck Hunt??? Wow, way to make a lady feel old! LOL!
    Brandi would like you to check out…{@iVillage #iVoices} Resolutions from Kids = More Sweets!My Profile

    • Christine St.Vil
      January 3, 2013 at 5:09 AM

      Hahahaha! Duck Hunt was THE game…anyone who doesn’t know about it, did not live it up like we did! LOL

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