The End-all-be-all of Construction Toys

For no other reason than our own sanity and peace of mind, we made a special expedition yesterday afternoon after work to Toys R Us for Sam. Our original intent was to buy him a razor scooter. He has been coveting a razor scooter for as long as we've known him and before he could walk, but for some unknown reason, when we got to Toys R Us and showed Sam the scooter we were going to get for him, he wasn't interested. Needless to say I wasn't going to shell out 50 bones for a toy he could take or leave, so we scoured the aisles for something that he really wanted and that we hoped might engage him for the more than 5 seconds that the rest of his old toys do now.

This is what we brought home...

It prompted no fewer than three complete melt-downs last night. One when we tried to get him away from the construction set long enough to eat dinner, a second time at bath and a third time at bed. The melt-downs grew progressively less emotional as the evening wore on, the first being the most dramatic, prompting me to commiserate with him as he is served time-out in his crib for saying "blah" to the raviolis Elise made for him. I responded, "Sam, we understand you're excited. It's a very cool toy. That's why we got it for you."

Sometimes (most of the time) I explain too much to Sam. Elise calls me on this on the time. Telling me to just walk-away when she finds me explaining to Sam the rationale behind our discipline which usually just serves the purpose of exacerbating the break-down.

This toy, in particular, was very cool. It came with about fifty plastic 'boulders' that looked like little dried, grey peas that I am sure, by now, are everywhere but int he actual construction site.