Terry the Turtle

 

Nathaniel had a milestone this week: his first toy that he's absolutely petrified of.

The toy in question, a birthday gift from his uncle, is a plastic turtle. When you turn it on, it rolls forward and plays a little song. Then, when the music stops, the shapes on it shell pop out (the idea being the baby can put the shapes back in their slots).

The turtle has a few things cutting against it. The motor is a bit loud (particularly when the turtle gets caught on something like a rug), which clashes with the music. But Nathaniel's least favorite part is definitely the pop-out. When that happens, he instantly bursts into tears and makes a beeline for the nearest parental figure for a hug.

We're not alarmed by this -- we know "child is irrationally afraid of innocuous thing" is very normal, even for a baby as level-headed and mellow as Nathaniel. If anything, it's alarmingly cute just how scared he is of this random turtle, since it's actually quite rare anything penetrates Nathaniel's unflappable mien (in true sociopath fashion, I've decided to name the turtle "Terry", short for "terrifying").

Jill and I were wondering, though, how baby toy manufacturers deal with this sort of reaction in testing. Again, it is absolutely normal for babies to react with irrational fear towards something totally innocuous. I'm sure that for every baby that hates Terry, there are dozens who think he's their best friend. But that suggests that, like a pharmaceutical company measuring side effects, toy manufacturers probably have some maximum threshold of terrified baby that's acceptable before a product goes to market, and the idea of that metric is hilarious to me.

Meanwhile, we've stowed Terry away in a drawer. But Nathaniel has found Terry's hiding place and has gingerly started taking him out to play with. We don't turn the power on, and so the scary pop-out doesn't happen (we experimented with it once more, but Nathaniel still hated it), but it's definitely a case of Nathaniel deciding that he is going to confront his fears, and I'm very proud of him for it.