Can't Win

When Angus was three-ish, we went over to a friend's house whose daughter had a toy cash register. It was love at first sight. He played with it the entire time we were over there and talked about it for days afterwards. At his next birthday, it would have been just plain cruel not to produce the 'cash richister'.
I hated that damned thing. It made annoying beeping noises, the toy money ended up under the couch cushions, and some kid at a party put Doritos in it so the drawer didn't open as well and felt greasy even after I washed it (the kid's mother, quite sensibly, said that her son had just put in the cash register what had the greatest value to him, so fair enough). I looked forward ardently to the day when he wouldn't yearn after every plastic piece of crap in existence.

photo credit
creative commons license
Then came Eve. Along with a metric crap-ton of Disney Fairy Beauty Sparkly Pink Mermaid Princess dolls, nightgowns, dress-up clothes, sippy cups, pull-ups, towels, Kleenex boxes etc. She would have begged for a tire iron that had Ariel's mug slapped on it. I thought, some day she won't be quite so susceptible to princess merchandise. That will be a good day.

Yesterday I was paging idly through the Toys R Us flyer (idly because my Christmas shopping is basically done and I would rather walk naked through a firing range wearing antlers than go into Toys R Us in December.) And suddenly I was welling up, because there was a Disney Princess toy cash register that both of my kids are too old to want.

Somebody smack me.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh man, and doesn't that say it all. Zarah
Mary Lynn said…
Ha! Well, you're just impossible to please, aren't ya? ;-)

Too funny.
Anonymous said…
Oh, the Disney Fairy Princess Mermaid stuff drives me crazy. But on some level I prefer it to the tween stuff. Give me Ariel over Hannah Montana any day.

And I totally understand where you're coming from. I remember crying when my daughter started sleeping through the night at the precocious age of 3 months. I MISSED getting up at all hours to feed her. Yeah, I kind of want to slap the me that thought that way, too.
Julie said…
it's those moments that catch you off guard that are the most off putting aren't they?

thanks again for the bag of goodies. that was a major score and the jellybean is going to be besides himself with excitement.

we'll have to do hot chocolate again soon. it was a nice change of pace for me.

ta
Anonymous said…
Oh my goodness! I'm going through the same thing in my house. My six yr. old has determined he's too old for his Thomas the Train set. And I still love building track set ups for them. :( I'm not ready for them to grow up!
Mike said…
Yeah, it just reminds you how quickly they grow up.

Look on the bright side...one day there may be grandkids :)
Rosemary said…
My next door neighbor has an eighteen month old that is getting most of Holly's toy hand me downs. Every time I go in thier basement it's a sea of old toys that used to drive me crazy. I love every minute of playing with them and Holly and Aidan think they're new again when they're at someone else's house.
Hugs Allison...

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