Cereal box toys

Adults can struggle through life trying to find happiness, but kids can find it in a cereal box toy. That innocense is one of the wonders children posses. I wish I could find hours of fun from a cereal box toy. Actually... maybe I do... because with 3 kids I get to vicariously see the world through their eyes. That is invaluable and just raising them so they can smile and laugh at the silly wonders of childhood is enough meaning for me.

I can still remember to this day a particular cereal box toy from my childhood. I can remember the round kitchen table with metalic silver 2 inch siding. I can't remember what cereal it was... but it must have been Cheerios, because that is all I ate for breakfast until I was a teenager. An oh yeah... I can remember the giddy excitement as my dad put the toy together. It was some type of blimp balloon thing... (or maybe a submarine) but there was a balloon and as he was blowing it up for me... the thing burst. POW! I went from giddy excitment to outright horror!!! I screamed and cried... I was devistated. As a father myself I *know* now what that can do to a dad trying to do something cool for his kids. I don't remember how he reacted to my crying. Must have been the knock on the head (just kidding) I wonder how would I react in the same situation as a dad?

I can also remember spilling a container of bubbles on the back steps. I am sure my parents thought I was crying because I spilled them... but I seriously remember being sad for wasting my parents money... I had envisioned a liquid so cool and fun as bubbles must have cost infinitely more than say gasoline... and me spilling the bubbles must meant the family would be short on cash for awhile. Sure I probably wanted the bubbles back too... but the overwhelming emotion I remember was sadness that I ruined something my parents gave me. It terrifies me to think I may have been angry at my own kids for the same thing

I am not sure McDonald's had toys are even happy meals back then... happy meals... isn't that kind of freaky nice name? It kind of freaks me out and makes me think of anti depresant medication or something... just eat your Happy Meals and smile and wave boys... smile and wave.

But toys in food... be it cereal of junk food bag... was a huge thing to kids back then. There were no video games... no cable or satelite TV... and simple toy was days worth of planing. My kids now have so many small toys like that I fear they are breading like rabbits. We have a rule 'no toy before eating' or the kids would never eat. TV has the same effect. Maybe... hey... maybe we *should* leave the TV on... it could be a TV diet... they would get so hypnotized in the TV they wouldn't remember to eat.