Bubbles

When I was a child, everyone has the same bubbles. A bottle of bubble solution and a simple plastic bubble wand. The bubble wand was a plastic stick with a loop on one side for blowing bubbles and a flattened end on the other side used as a handle.

Some ingenious people (not me!) used a metal coat hanger to craft their own large bubble wands. Dip it in bubble solution and then run as fast as you can while holding the wand out. If you do it right, this will create amazing, meters long, bubble ‘tubes’ that everyone loves.

These days, there are so many more options. And everything is so cheap too. We bought my daughters each a ‘bubble sword’. It is a plastic toy that, when you press the button, plays sword sound effects, flashes lights, and shoots bubbles out of the top.

My wife and I don’t like ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ social pressure so, we never care much about if a toy is a ‘boy’ toy or a ‘girl’ toy. Ironically, although I don’t care, my daughter loves ‘Pretty Cure’, princesses, and all things pink. We wanted to get the pink wand bubble toy but we could only find the blue sword one.

We took the bubble toys to the park last weekend. My older daughter had a lot of fun running around making bubbles. She became popular with the other bubble loving kids. My daughter happily bragged about, and showed off her cool new toy.

My younger daughter, on the other hand, just wasn’t that interested. She seemed a little nervous about the noise and vibration the toy makes while pushing the button. She did however like to use it to draw pictures in the sand. It was broken and non-functional just 5 minutes after we arrived at the park.

I think bubbles are a great, although somewhat messy, activity for kids. However, I’m not sure if these cheap plastic toys are actually making it better or worse.