Toy Bombs

Happy Holidays to all as we move into this magical season!  I have to admit that I'm a "newbie" Mom when it comes to kids and holidays.  There are a few rules that apparently are in the fine print of my Mom Contract.  One of them has to do with the holidays and how you navigate through the season as unscathed and with your sanity intact as possible.

I took Nea out on a shopping trip with me last week and we ran across a Thomas the Train table.  It was all set up, all ready to go.  Tracks put together, and trains on them just waiting for little hands to come and push them along.....

Playing with trains at FunShop at 18 months

 My girl is a train girl.  She's a MAJOR train girl.  Her fascination with the wheels began at a very early age and it's just continued to be one of her fixations.  We could do worse I suppose.  So anything with a train, has a train, looks like a train or smells like it might run on a track is something that makes her very happy.  When she's stressed, she will line them all up in categories.  It may be color, it could be size, it might be function.  She seems to choose at random...although I'm sure it makes sense to her.  It's only now that she's starting to have the trains "engage" with one another in some pretend play.  Pretend play is a good developmental milestone.  Only watching and playing with the wheels of a train is fun, but something a 12month old would do.  She's 2 and 1/2.  It's nice to see her changing the way she plays.

Back to our shopping trip.

My little conductor saw that train table and said every train word she knows!...

"Thomas!, Percy!  Gordon!  track!  ChooChoo!  Thomas!  James! Mavis! Are you okay?  Thomas!"

My heart sank. Oh wonderful....

The trains were attached to the table, so it wasn't really possible to move them around the track.  But when I tried to move away there was lots of yelling and screaming.  Uh oh....Toddler Hissy Fit comin up!  

I've come to know the difference between Toddler Hissy Fit and Autism Meltdown these days.  It's a fine line, but it can be done.  Toddler Hissy Fit usually centers around "I didn't get my way." vs. Autism Meltdown which centers around "I can't express/communicate/ground myself."  Like I said, I'm becoming a pro.

The short answer is this.  I was tired, it was time to get home.  She left the store with a train named Luke.

I lamented on facebook about the situation to which my friend Lois replied....

"Who in their right mind takes their child with them when they go shopping in December?  You got what you deserved." 

Fine print.  I didn't read it.

Yesterday I had some shopping to do and decided to take Nea with me.  I went to a DIFFERENT store to avoid that train table all together.  So clever I thought I was....

 I steered clear of the toy aisle and stuck to my list which included fun things like deodorant, toilet paper, body wash, pencils and the like.  However, I was TOY BOMBED!

In office supplies she found an Ariel figurine that someone had left there.  So I handed it to her with the plan of distracting her and getting it away from her.  Sure, I got it away from her when she saw the motorized car in the deodorant section.  Great, I got rid of Ariel (dropped her off in the Cold and Flu aisle) and ended up with a car that played "Pump Up the Jam".  What the ??....

Then it hit me as I looked around.  Every parent is playing this game.  Drop a toy here, end up with another one there.  There were toys and fun tidbits that kids had grabbed and a parent tried to get rid of quietly while Jr. wasn't looking.  You can tell its the parents and not the kids because it's usually on the top shelf and pushed back or sitting upside-down.  

Except of course to my eagle-eyed kid who played a master game of the "Where's Waldo" of toy finding.  

The obnoxious Pump Up the Jam car was left upside down near the cat food.  Ha!  I was winning!  Then I heard it as we turned the corner into Paper Goods.....

"Percy!"  

Dammit!

The short answer is this.  I was tired, it was time to get home.  She left the store with a stuff train named Percy.

Nea and Percy- Christmas 2012