Karen Low Phillips/istockphoto
DCL
Kids seem to fall into one of two categories when it comes to nighttime buddies: stuffed animals or dolls. I was most certainly the former. And from my view at the time, I was one of the luckiest of the lot. Seemed like whenever there was a carnival in town, I would win a super-sized stuffed animal. Never mind that it was stuffed with sawdust from who-knows-where and carried a somewhat off-putting smell of old hot dogs and all sorts of other carni food. It was big, and it was mine.
Now that I'm a parent, however, I'm afraid the bloom is off the rose--I know a lot more now when it comes to my own kids health and safety and toys. It's been pretty impossible to ignore the many frightening recalls on kids' playthings during the past year, but stuffed toys and dolls have been largely outside of most parents concerns. Nonetheless, there are some subtle things we should consider when buying our kids their new best friends:
