HOMERUN!

There are many things we learn as parents. I've now held this title for over 3 years. In the last 2-1/2 I've learned a lot. A whole lot. I'm sure I've got much more to learn, but we've made it this far. If you are looking forward to some philisophical blog about parenting, you've come to the wrong place...this is not that. An honest realization though, yes...yes in deed.



JD has a lot of toys. By no means would you walk in his play room and think *spoiled* but he does have a lot of toys. My weakness is clothes. So if you look in his closet you might think *spoiled* but I know my weaknesses and therefore stear clear of Baby Gap and Dillard's Ralph Lauren section except during sales. Anyways...most of his toys come from birthday and Christmas with a few (and I really do mean only a few) in between.



I've come to realize buying toys is sort of like going up to bat. After bringing the toy home, taking it out of the package (which is the most difficult part of all), and handing it over to the 36-inch tall man, it becomes one of three different things: an out, a hit, or a homerun.



STRIKEOUT

They play with it for a few seconds but it really wasn't worth the cost and DEFINETLY not worth taking out of the plastic, untying the 155 twist ties, realzing it needs batteries, finally finding the right amount of batteries in all of the remotes you don't use, now needing a screwdriver, a phillips head screwdriver made for eyeglasses, unscrewing the battery case, inserting the batteries, rescrewing the battery case. After a few seconds they get bored and would rather play with the screwdriver you forgot to put back up.



HIT

Once you go through the gruelling process of preparing it for play, they actually play with it. They might play with it several times. Eventually they loose the pieces though or in our case, leave it on the floor when they go to bed and the dogs chew it up.



HOMERUN

Once bought and assembled it becomes their prized possession. They run straight to it as soon as getting home, or waking up, or getting out of the bath. Most nights you either pry it from their hands or just let them sleep with it. You watch them sit and stare for minutes at a time just admiring the toys beauty. It really is, well worth the cost and every minute of assembly. It's now been deemed the perfect toy!!


In 2-1/2 years we've had more OUTS than anything, but a few HITS and your occasional HOMERUN. Yesterday, we had a homerun (which is great since our Astros aren't doing much of those these days). Let me first say that JD is ALL BOY. The only present he still plays with from Christmas is his tool box. A couple of weeks ago he got a small tool bench with a couple of tools, he's now played with this non-stop. So, yesterday, my Nana (who's in town and has witnessed JD's obsession with all tools - real or not) found an electric Bob the Builder drill. She's still the wonderful Nana that shops for JD at Target while I look at all the girly things I soon get to shop for. Once done registering for just a few more things, I found Nana staring at a drill and a saw. That's when I discovered this. It only took a few minutes of "should I?" before I realized YES! I should indeed!

And he loves it! It was a homerun from the minute I pulled it out of the box. I started this post a few days ago and I'm just now finishing and I can say that he's played with it non-stop since last Friday! He's in toy or should I say, tool heaven!!

He's now slept several nights with the electric, drill, electric saw, and real flashlight. The other night he woke up in the middle of the night and knocked on our door. I got up and opened it and he was standing there with all three tools in his arms. I took him back to be and told him he could sleep with one, the rest had to go on his shelf until morning. Well...he's a smart guy and picked the flashlight of course. So as I laid there for the next 20 minutes I had a light shining in my eye while JD asked, "Mama, your eyes closed? Mommy, you see the light? Look, mommy, I see my fan. Mommy, are you sleeping?" I finally said good night JD and went back to my own bed. I guess he finally got tired of the light and went back to sleep!