The toy dilemma: batteries and plastic and noises, oh my!

I'm one of those mamas that said she would never give her child a battery-operated toy and that everything would be made of wood, etc.  Then I saw how much those perfect wooden toys cost in the stores, even second hand ones.

The truth is that Hudson loves music and lights, so anything that makes music, or makes lights blink, or a combination of the two, is a winner.  Usually these toys are made of cheap plastic and require batteries, so I have accepted their presence in my home.  There are several toys that we cheered about when their batteries died and we decided to not replace them, but there are also toys that we keep the batteries in and that Hudson simply flipped over when we did replace dead batteries.

His favorite toys are currently his nightlights.  There are three of them, and none of them serve as night lights because they are so distracting to him that there's no way he will sleep if they are in the room.  The first one is the Cloud B Sea Turtle that I bought over a year ago and has been a button-pushing delight from the start.  It shines stars and a moon on the ceiling in two colors and also illuminates animal pictures (of endangered animals) around the turtle's shell.  They also make a regular turtle without the endangered sea creatures, but the box says that part of the price goes to organizations that protect them.  Hudson loves turning the stars on and off, changing the color, and finding the moon on the ceiling.

His other night lights are LED charged and don't require batteries, and he has a green turtle shape and a blue car shape, but they are the same brand as the truck I found an image of online (I know that's cheating).  He didn't know how to turn the light on and off at first, but now that he's a little bigger he can do it himself and the lights aren't a cause for frustration.

As for music, he has a whole passel of second-hand toys that make music electronically as well as naturally.  Of course, his favorite music-maker is the guitar, which he will drag around the house with him even though it's bigger than him.  He also has toy drums, a little plinky piano, and a little camera that sings songs.  When he's big enough to manage an iPod, I'm sure he'll be constantly "plugged in".

So what is Hudson getting for Christmas?  I bought him a "wooden stacking train" that has wooden pegs on each car for stacking some colored blocks.  He is getting into trains (the 1977 wind-up train is a hit, I'll have to post a picture of it!) and I think he'll like the blocks on it.  I hear rumor that he's getting some Dr. Seuss in Spanish from Grandma Mary Jeanne, but other than that we won't be showering him with too many Christmas gifts.  It will be his first Christmas he's big enough to start "getting" what's going on a little, at least physically able to open some presents, so we'll see how it goes.  He does know that Christmas trees are supposed to light up, and when we saw a tree unplugged in one of the community centers, he ran to it and asked to turn it on.  Like I said, anything that will light up will hold his attention for a long while.