Remarks from Mark

Before becoming a parent, I really never noticed how colorful and loud children's toys could be.

I've become familiar with that fact during about the past 15 months, thanks to all of the playthings Christina, my wife, and I have purchased for Hazel, our daughter.

Her toys are located mainly in our house's living room, though they often make their way to her bedroom or the kitchen.

Hazel has small plastic balls; stackable buckets, cups and rings; and other miscellaneous toys that don't make noise automatically.

However, she can put the balls in a multicolored Playskool Busy Ball Popper Toy, which shoots the spheres straight up while music plays.

This is one of Hazel's favorite objects to play with, as our toddler usually will come running when we push the button to turn on the toy.

She also has figured out how to push the start button on her own and she almost always smiles and laughs when she gets the toy going.

Another of Hazel's preferred playthings is a mostly pink, light-up teapot from Fisher-Price's Laugh & Learn Sweet Manners Tea Set.

She enjoys pushing the music button on the teapot so she can "pour" out the tea as the spout lights up and several songs and sounds play.

Hazel also has a big basket of stuffed animals to play with and babble to and magnetic letters to put on and take off the refrigerator.

However, whenever she sees Christina or me with a plastic water bottle, she reaches her little hands up for it because it's another object for her to play with.

Hazel loves to shake a bottle that has water in it, due to the noise the liquid makes, and roll it across our kitchen's hardwood floor.

When we watch her play with a water bottle, we wonder why we even buy her toys, but we never know what she'll want to play with next.

We're still working on getting Hazel to pick up her toys after she pulls most of them out of her pink Minnie Mouse toy chest.

Sometimes she'll put away her playthings by herself and then just take them out again right away, so again, it's a work in progress.

For now, it's all play, all day for Hazel and no work, but at least our daughter isn't a jerk – and won't be - as long as Christina and I raise her the right way.