All toys have an Irritant Quotient (IQ). A toy with a low IQ is enjoyed by the family for years.  The pain of stepping on the bricks garners Lego a medium IQ score; its existence is tolerated in our home. When a toy scores a high IQ score, I get chest pain thinking about it and cackle as I hand it over to the unsuspecting staff at the thrift store.

I never really know which toy is going to have a high IQ.  The cause of irritation isn’t obvious at first.  Sometimes it’s not so much the toy itself that grates on my nerves but how the girls play with it.  Or it could be the impact the toy has on our home.  Take Play-Doh for example. The girls are occupied for ages rolling it out, making shapes and chopping it into tiny pieces. Brilliant: low IQ.  Then they sweep the tiny pieces onto the floor, grind it into the carpet and Harriet eats a wad and sticks her jaw shut.  Suddenly terrible: high IQ.

This brings me to the lovely spinning top.  Harriet spotted it and asked for it. It didn’t cost much and it looks so vintage and cool, I thought it would raise the tone of our toy box.

It’s all rattling metal and bang, bang banging.  Super high IQ.  I hid the top in the closet within an hour of bringing it home.

So, with Christmas just around the corner, here are my toy shopping tips for parents:

• Never impulse buy a toy your child asks for.  It will always be a mistake
• Press every single button on a noisy toy and bang all toys on the floor a few time to make sure they’re not too loud for you
• Take off your socks and shoes, stamp on all toys and kick them to make sure you can cope with the pain.  As well, hit yourself over the head with it a few times to make sure it doesn’t leave a scar if your child uses it as a weapon
• Only buy paint, pens and crayons that coordinate with your décor
• If you’re looking for a vintage spinning top you can pick one up cheap at the Salvation Army on 4^th