This post is dedicated to the toys that pack a bit of a sting to them. You know the ones – those hard, plastic beasties that poke at tender little knees (LEGO’s anyone?), the mechanized monstrosities with moving parts that pull and pinch and the poorly designed finger eater uppers. Ah yes. Good times.

Barbie’s Horse is Mean

This delectable Barbie horse looks sweet, innocent and relatively safe, right? Wrongo! The front legs are hinged so it can be posed, and my 5-year-old got her fingers pinched enough that she stopped playing with it shortly after getting it for Christmas last year. Maybe this year’s model will come with its very own electric shock system built into the lovely posable legs. That’ll show those little girls!

Zoob

I’m guilty of purchasing Zoob for Ana when she was 6 (two Christmas’s ago) based solely on the cool packaging. I applied no common sense or past experience to this purchase at all. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that the toy was frustrating to her and came with the added bonus of being extremely pinchy.

At the time I thought that Zoob was probably good for older kids (it’s recommended for 6-10 years) and/or kids that love to build stuff. II figured this was just a classic example of buying a toy that’s not age appropriate and getting stuck with nothing but a bin full of colorful plastic pieces. I still think it looks cool, but it hasn’t come out of that nifty bin in two years. Apparently children have a long memory when it comes to things that cause them physical pain. Go figure.

Barbie Fashionista

Gosh, look, it’s another Barbie product that causes physical pain. The Barbie Fashionista dolls have hinged legs and arms that are perfect for posing. Perfect, that is, until the 5-year-old gets that tender part of her hand (you know, the area between thumb and index finger) caught in Barbie’s bone-crushing hard vinyl joints.

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