Mommy the Toy Snatcher

For Parents, Recall Lists Are Playtime's Spoiler

Colin Kriebel's summer has been a really cruddy inverse of Christmas. First, in June, the 3-year-old's beloved (and lead-painted) Thomas railroad cars were recalled. Six toys total, which he'd chug-a-chugged with for more than a year. Then, on Tuesday, the ultimate blow: Colin's Mattel Jeep, Sarge, which his Burke parents had presented last week as a reward for his first dental visit, was also listed as dangerous. Colin fretfully suggested to his mom that he could just play with Sarge a "little bit." No dice, said Gretchen Kriebel.

Colin's Jeep is one of 436,000 die-cast cars -- out of 18.6 million China-made toys in total -- that Mattel announced were potentially hazardous this week. Two months ago RC2 Corp. put out a similar warning for 1.5 million of its Thomas trains. The summer of the recall continues.

And while parents balance frustration toward toy companies with relief at discovering the toxic toys before their kids get sick, they also deal with another quandary: how to not feel like the Grinch Who Stole Playtime.

Kriebel, an account executive, has a particularly acute case of guilt.

"Colin is at an age where he associates things being taken away with being bad," she says. "He has a hard time understanding it's not his fault."

Her son's birthday is in October, but Kriebel has already asked relatives to skip the toys. She's pretty sure the recalls aren't over, "and I don't want these . . . months to be completely traumatic."

Alexandria mom Lynne Imlay has two train-loving sons: Griffin, 4, and Bennett, 1. A native Australian, Imlay tends to be laid-back in her parenting, saying U.S. standards are more stringent than those in other places she's lived. Still, when she realized the red engine under recall was the same one Bennett had been gnawing on for the past few months, she decided to box it up. She matter-of-factly explained to her sons that the toys had bad paint on them that would make them sick. They seemed okay with that. Then Griffin fearfully approached her a few days later with a question: Was it still okay to play? Did all of his toys have bad paint on them?

Ouch.

So now parents like Kriebel and Imlay are trying to figure out how to negotiate the newly treacherous toy circuit without freaking out their kids. (Three injuries have so far been reported by Mattel, all caused by children swallowing magnets.) Kriebel plans to buy Colin books and clothes for his birthday and hopes he doesn't notice the conspicuous absence of vehicles (his favorite movie is Pixar's "Cars").

Other parents are replacing their kids' whiz-bang-but-potentially-dangerous playthings with old-fashioned toys that are made of non-toxic materials and are U.S.-produced.

D and ME, a family-owned toy business in Montana, sells only handmade toys made of wood from sustainable forests, coated in safe paint. The company's bare-bones Web site, which proudly advertises its toy safety, used to attract an average of two orders a week. This summer the number has increased to two a day, and owner Mary Hurley expects to see the number keep rising. "Parents have become much more concerned lately. Everyone asks what has lead in it."

Still, it's hard for time-squeezed parents to keep up with every recall, every danger, every magnet and moving part -- especially when it's the magnet and moving-part toys your kids want.

Cynthia Walsh, a corporate recruiter who just relocated to the Washington area from Florida, pondered this problem while shopping for back-to-school supplies with her 3- and 5-year-old sons yesterday. As Ryan and Brady ogled the action-figure aisle in a Bailey's Crossroads Toys "R" Us, Walsh said she'd love to buy her sons things that are American-made, "but the hip robot and superhero stuff they're into are all made overseas."

She looked down at the box in her hand, containing a Spider-Man 3 figure, and flipped it over.

"Yep," she sighed. "China."