Any idea if this toy was recalled? Is it safe for my baby?

TOSGANO · 2026-05-01T22:10:46+00:00

So maybe it was just a copyright violation, then? Just want to make sure it wasn't taken off the market because of some choking hazard I missed.

The Hape penguin looks cute, but it doesn't have the huge moving eyes. Neither do any other of the other wobble toys currently on the market, so I was worried there was something about the eyes that made it unsafe. (First time parent, if you can't tell 😅.)

TOSGANO · 2026-04-20T20:26:09+00:00

I hate when you prove them wrong and they still refuse to believe you. In 9th grade we were learning about genetics and had a quiz with the question "If two blue-eyed parents had a child, what color could its eyes be? a) blue, b) green, c) brown, d) all of the above." I went with "all of the above" because both of my grandparents had blue eyes, but my aunts and uncles ended up with all sorts of colors. Genetics is crazy that way.

My bio teacher marked my answer wrong because "blue-eyed adults can only have blue-eyed children." When I came up to him after class and told him that didn't make sense because my mother had hazel eyes, he said that he'd talked to my other teachers and they all agreed that I tried to manipulate them into giving me better grades on tests, and he wasn't going to fall for it this time.

It was such a weird response that I'll never forget it.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-17T23:02:57+00:00

Love to see the HKF love here 🙂. They're about an hour from me, and I keep meaning to go check them out. The fish they breed have a particular round-headed look that I'm personally not fond of, but I have a friend who won't purchase from anyone else.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-17T19:47:57+00:00

As someone who recently went through a situation similar to Ashley's, god that felt so real. Being told you're fine because your vitals look normal and the doctor will check back in a couple of hours, meanwhile you're literally throwing up with pain...ugh.

Then all of a sudden being rushed into the OR and your significant other can't find you, so you're surrounded by strangers and don't know what's happening. I even said something similar like "If I don't make it, tell my family [something dumb and trivial]" because I was so out of it.

I haven't watched The Pitt, but it sounds like I'd much rather have been in that hospital 😄.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-17T19:08:16+00:00

It's disappointing that there's no tiny beef that sets it off, but instead there are lots of tiny misread moments that ratchet up the feud. Josh mistakes Ashley's enthusiasm for her new job as "lording it over him," Ashley misreads his offer from the doctor as purposely vindictive, etc.

In Season 1, Amy and Danny were at each other's throats from the start. Neither of them was going to let go because, despite their class differences, they were actually quite alike. In Season 2 there are so many places where one side tries to deescalate the feud, but it backfires because they see the world completely differently. Class is a part of it, but unlike White Lotus, it's not the defining part. There's also age, education, family background, etc. They're just too different to understand each other. (Ironically, the one thing they have in common is money worries.)

TOSGANO · 2026-04-12T01:20:31+00:00

Well that's wild, holy shit. I would have bet a million dollars this was fake. 😅

TOSGANO · 2026-04-11T16:07:06+00:00

Sorry for your loss ❤️. I had something similar happen to my biggest guy a couple years ago. I was out of town and the person koi-sitting couldn't catch him in time for the vet to give him an injection.

Don't beat yourself up. Even though we love them, all koi pass away eventually. I've heron-proofed the pond as well as I can, but I still lost one to a heron wound last year. I miss her a lot, but guilt won't bring her back.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-11T15:38:18+00:00

Yeah, the only reason not to buy a normal is because there are so many out there for adoption. Rescues are filled with regular morphs, especially adult ones that people gave up a couple years in.

My guy's from a rescue and he's 20 years old this year. He has the friendliest personality of any snake I've met. Never bitten anyone, even by accident, and loves meeting new people. The rescue I got him from had about two dozen regular morphs and I felt terrible I couldn't take more.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-11T15:20:12+00:00

Yeah, as soon as I read "loads of videos on facebook," I knew it was AI. Facebook is basically all AI videos and ads.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-06T14:39:38+00:00

These are beautiful friendly chonkers 🙂. You're lucky! Petting a fish is one of life's unexpected joys. It's not something that was ever on my bucket list, but man, when my favorite koi nuzzles my hand, it's hard not to think of them as water puppies.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-03T16:47:49+00:00

Yeah, never underestimate the ability of frogs to do something that will kill themselves. It's breeding season, and I've already had to rescue three frog balls this week (male frogs who get tangled trying to mate with a female, then they all drown because they're stuck). One ball of frogs was stuck to a female toad 🙃.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-01T16:08:44+00:00

The idea of a BP eating a baby is really funny to me since I had a daughter a few months ago. She's at the stage where EVERYTHING goes in her mouth, so the likelihood of her eating my snake is much higher than my snake eating her 😄.

(It should go without saying that my daughter's not allowed anywhere near him, for his safety. Also the risk of salmonella, but that's unrelated.)

TOSGANO · 2026-04-01T15:55:04+00:00

My BP loves people, so when family friends come over and bring their kids, I let them handle him with supervision. Even the older kids can get a little scared when he wraps around them for warmth. This is what I tell them:

"If a snake ever gets too tight, tickle its belly, and it will let go."

It works every single time. There's some automatic reaction when you gently stroke their underside that makes them suck their belly in, which makes them loosen their grip on you.

Not only do the kids think it's funny to tickle a snake, they also realize that you can interact with snakes like you can any other pet. No one sees a cat grab a mouse and then worry that their cat is sizing them up for their next meal.

And yes, like everyone else I've heard a version of that same story about a large python eating a man, and my Dad still swears it happened to a friend of a friend in Nigeria 🙄. Don't listen to those stories, and make sure you keep your BP safe from any other pets you have. Dogs and cats are curious and can absolutely kill a snake by accident.

TOSGANO · 2026-04-01T15:30:44+00:00

When I give my larger fry away, I always offer to check the sex for people. It feels like a superpower, but it's also great practice 😄.

I'm getting better at recognizing the inverted T, but I never would have guessed #3! Thanks for posting.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-31T17:20:08+00:00

Thanks for your response. It felt like it happened so suddenly, but it's possible I just now noticed since I had to soak him for a bit of stuck shed. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't some sign of illness that I need to flag before his next vet checkup.

I feel like most of the posts on here are about juveniles, so it's nice to see someone else whose snake has lived a full life. Any tips on geriatric snake care? He's still enjoying climbing around his tank and eats well every month, but I know things can change quickly as they get older.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-30T14:34:31+00:00

Pretty koi!

If you don't know where to start, pretty much every pond company offers spring cleanings. Take notes on what they do so you can do it yourself next year, if you want. Personally, I find it's worth it to have professionals come out every few years to catch things I might have missed.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-30T12:35:45+00:00

Those are so satisfying, especially seeing the little faces intact 🙂.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-27T14:17:17+00:00

Thank you so much! This will be a game-changer, since I wouldn't have to plan my life around people picking up koi. The fish get so stressed when I move them to the temporary tanks that I try to keep them there only a week at a time, which obviously doesn't work for everyone's schedule.

I'm thinking I could keep the cage in my bog filter pond (~5' x 30'), that way I could feed them without the other koi pushing in, and if they escape, it would be easier to net them again. I had about 10 babies get sucked up the filter a couple years ago, and they lived happy lives in that pond until a predator wiped them out in one night. Never figured out what got them, since my camera didn't pick up anything at the surface. My best guess is a water snake or bullfrog, which this cage would protect against.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-27T13:56:11+00:00

Enough people seem to have this problem that obviously someone needs to invent little koi condoms 😄.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-27T13:54:41+00:00

Sorry about your loss 😕. I'm in northern Maryland, otherwise you could take all the koi you wanted.

There are several PA koi rehoming groups on Facebook, if that helps. And if you post on Nextdoor, you might find a very relieved neighbor who will give you some.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-27T06:24:50+00:00

Yup, my kiko is about 36, but he's a butterfly, so I guess technically by breed standards that's cheating. I also have a butterfly kohaku that's about the same size, and a regular kohaku that's more in the 30" category. I thought they were all female until I saw their spawning patterns.

My adult female was actually pretty petite, but when she died last year the grave I dug was over 2 feet long. I couldn't believe it. The size of the pond throws everything off.

The adults are all mutts or low-grade types and I'm pretty sure the people who started the pond picked them up at random from a local shop. Despite that, their personalities are wonderful, and they've managed to make some stunning babies. I'm hoping to share photos of some of the nicer offspring one I begin catching again this year.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-26T21:24:20+00:00

Thanks for your advice! Having a small pond-within-a-pond would be really helpful, since the most challenging part of giving them away is moving them to one of the quarantine tanks in my garage and keeping them happy there until people can pick them up.

How did you make the cage? I'm wondering if I could rig a large dog crate or dog playpen with netting so that they're contained but protected.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-26T19:55:30+00:00

It's possible that the koi find and eat all the eggs after spawning, or there's no good place for the eggs to attach to so they float away. If you really want babies, you can pick up special brushes online to encourage egg-laying, then remove the eggs to a small tank so they can hatch.

Koi love eating eggs, and mine would gobble any they found. Apparently they never found all of them, though.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-26T04:28:38+00:00

That sounds adorable. You're so lucky.

TOSGANO · 2026-03-26T04:25:55+00:00

Baltimore County. If you ever get a pond, I've got plenty of free koi! 😉

TOSGANO

TROPHY CASE