Toddler Lessons

I find it fascinating to see Julian learn something that I didn't even know that I taught him.  On Thursday, we went to Toys 'R Us.  We don't go there very often but he's been there a few times.   Typically when we go there, we'll let him sit in the cart and play with some toy that he finds interesting and then we're leaving, we put the toy back on the shelf.  But this time, we were actually there to buy him a toy.  That night, Brian was going to leave for California and he'll be gone for 30 days.  So I thought Julian could have a new toy to play with while Daddy is gone.  After being in the store for a few minutes, Julian saw a Duplo set that he liked and so I gave it to him to hold.  Pretty soon after, he saw a small train that he liked and handed me the Duplo set so he could hold the train instead.  Somehow he knew that he was going to get something while we were at the store but also that he could only get one thing.  I was very amused by the fact that he traded a $20 toy for a $6 toy.  Then we moved to look at the Cars aisle.  He is obsessed with the movie Cars and carries his toy Mater everywhere we go (I think it has taken the place of his binky).  He saw a car he wanted (for $4) and gave me the train so he could have the car.  As we were going to checkout, he then saw a package of Cars stickers ($2) that he wanted instead, so he gave up the car. 

The whole experience was very eye-opening for me.  First of all, kids don't care about the price tags on their toys.  Julian would have been just as happy with the package of stickers for $2 as he was with the $20 set of Duplos.  He loves stickers more than anything right now and he'll entertain himself for quite awhile just decorating the house with stickers (fortunately they come off easily).  Second, Julian has learned that he doesn't get a lot of stuff.   He has plenty of toys but compared to most kids we know, he doesn't have that many.  His 2nd birthday is next month and it won't be a big deal.  We bought him a wooden toy kitchen as his present (he already had the wooden food and the toy dishes).  He got it early because I wanted him to be able to play with it for a little longer before it goes into storage while we live with my parents.  On his actual birthday, he'll probably get a new book and 2 or 3 cars and that's it.  We'll probably have some cake and maybe go out to dinner.  We won't have a party because he's still too young to care.  I think parties and holidays are overrated (just ask Brian, he calls me the Christmas Nazi but that's a post for another day). 

In case you're wondering, we bought the stickers, the car, and the train.  I figured spending less than $15 wasn't that big a deal (I would've spent more on a single larger toy if that's what he had wanted).  Julian got the car that day and I'm saving the other two for later in the month while Daddy is still gone.