I was cleaning out my desk yesterday, and I came across a box that held two relaxation balls. I thought they belonged to my wife so I put them on her desk. She saw them and gave them to our three year old. He was delighted, he loved them.
But…
All night I have been subjected to him running around with them and yelling gleefully “Look at my balls daddy!”. He would hand them to me and say “Daddy, can you hold my balls?” That was bad enough, but since he is in that stage of his life where he is busily learning the mechanics of counting, one time he held them up to me and exclaimed with pride: “I have two balls!” My mouth ran away from my brain and I replied “So do I honey”, to which he replied “Can I see your balls daddy?” I had no response.
Game, set and match to the kid.
My 3-year-old son got a book for Christmas with pictures of different trucks in it. He was asking me the names of different vehicles and, after we got to the picture of the Hummer, he started running around and yelling, “Hummers! I love Hummers!”
Okay, this may be some weird adolescent fantasy we had, but when I was a teen, my friends and I had the idea that those balls you linked to were used by women in a very… intimate way. As in a sex toy. We called them ben wah balls, and someones mom had a pair.
Were we just blowing smoke?
:eek:
I wonder if half the people that own these things know that? WeirdDave, does your wife know?
I can’t remember where I heard this story, and maybe someone made it up, but it sounds like it could be true:
A husband and father returned home from a business trip very late at night after his family had gone to sleep. His two kids were ill, and both had crept into bed with their mother for comfort. So, although he was exhausted from his travels and wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers of his own bed, there was not enough room for him and he had to find another place to sleep.
The next day, he laid down the law and informed his children that they were big kids now, and there was to be NO crawling into bed with mom in the future, sick or not.
So then he went on another trip, and his wife and kids came to the airport to greet him. In front of all the waiting people, his delighted son ran up to him and crowed loudly, for all assembled to hear: “GUESS WHAT DADDY? NOBODY SLEPT WITH MOMMY WHILE YOU WERE GONE.”
I was just about to ask that. How do these balls relax someone? Do you hold them in your hand or just look at them or something else?
If I recall correctly, you hold them in one hand and try to rotate one around the other. This helps concentrate the mind on the task and away from those things that stress you out. I received a pair, but never attempted to use them.
Sounds like Capt. Queeg fretting over the strawberries…
Hold them in your hand, and rotate them with finger motions - the set I have (had, actually, I haven’t seen them since the last move) have chimes inside, which make a pretty noise. It’s mostly a way to use the fidgety energy.
They’re also called Baoding balls and are a very different beast than ben wa balls.
Thanks! Interesting.
I have a pair of chiming exercise balls like that. Dad used them to exercise his arthritic hands. When he died they came to me. It’s harder to rotate them in one direction than the other. This pair is 1 3/4 inches in diameter, a bit bigger than I pictured ben wa balls to be. I have read of folks going to the ER to have a shot glass removed from the rectum. So, I wonder about the trickiness of getting 1 3/4" chiming balls out of a vagina, once they’re in.
When I roll them in my hand, my cat comes running, and he intently watches them. If I put one on the floor, he pushes it around, but he acts wary of it.
I made my own Christmas card this year. I did a painting, then had it made into a card at Walgreens.
The painting was a closeup of a pine tree, with a couple of ball ornaments on it. The way I lifted out the highlights gave the ornaments a sort of matte look rather than shiny. It was after I’d sent the cards out that I found out a better way to get a shiny effect.
Last week I was at an art gallery with my parents. There was a paining of something shiny, and it was done the right way. I commented to my mother that that was how I should have done my card.
“I like your balls!”, she said. The look I gave her put her into immediate backpedal mode.
Ice cream scoop.
Yes, my relaxation balls make a very pretty chiming noise. I keep them at work to help me there.
I don’t think the relaxation balls and Ben Wa balls are the same size, are they? I wouldn’t put relaxation balls in there…
With Ben Wa balls, however, gravity tends to lend a hand in the removal. The trick is holding them in there, with your muscles. But while they are weighty, they are quite small. A friend of mine had relaxation balls, and they were far bigger than my Ben Was.
ETA: Ah, Tengu has linkage upthread. They are different beasts, indeed.
Yes, I do know what Ben Wa balls, are and trust me, these are not they. They’re too big, for one. They’re for hand exercising - you spin them in your hand and try not to let them clank together.
My then-2-and-a-half year old son was really into construction equipment and still not great a pronouncing a number of sounds. We had to have a contractor come by to look at something, and when the guy pulled up, I went outside to greet him. My son came racing out after me, super excited and pointing yelling “DUMB FUCK DADDY! DUMB FUCK!!”
The contractor, who was built like the houses he works on, stopped, curious as to why this young child would point at him and yell such words. It might’ve gotten a bit tense, but I picked up my son and said “yes son - that is a dump truck…”
Just as an aside, if anyone reading this thread is thinking about getting themselves some Ben Wa balls, make sure that the box says “Ben Wa” and not “Benoit”, as those might kill your kids. 