My niece happened to call my wife and announce she was going to be coming over and she felt that our toys were boring. After all, she was seven years old.
I guess the blocks, tinker toys, and such were a little more appropriate when she was five. So, being a kid myself, I decided to head off to Toys’R’Us to rectify the problem of the dated toy chest.
Problem is, I’m not a little girl, despite throwing like one. I have no idea what they like, so I marched up to Customer Service and explained to the group of teens working there my problem: I needed toys suitable for a seven year old girl that weren’t boring.
One of the more bopitty girls sprang to my rescue and led me through a maze of toys into the girl section, an area of the store I barely knew existed and promptly avoided at all costs.
“So,” I asked, “have much experience being a seven year old girl?”
Without missing a beat she responded, “a whole year.”
“Excellent, you sound more than qualified.”
She led me over to a rack of dress up clothes for make believe. They were frilly spandex outfits letting kids be anything from a cheerleader to a princess. But, given that the clothes cost almost as much as the outfit I was wearing, I opted to move on to the next section.
There we explored plastic food, pretend shopping carts, and ugly assortments of dolls. There was a lot of pretending in this isle.
I wanted something more. So she took me to her most favorite toy — a doll that you actually fed and it actually pooped into a diaper, which you then changed. It had all kinds of expensive food and diaper accessories. Admittedly, it looked kinda cool.
“I can’t even believe we have this one in stock, they go so fast — little girls just love these babies!”
I looked at the baby-in-a-box. “Question.”
“Shoot.”
“What happens if my niece feeds the baby, gets bored, and puts it back in the toy box.”
The expression change was as discrete, incremental, and illuminating as a traffic signal. The question got processed, then she pondered why I was asking it, and then it dawned on her that I’d have a toy box with a baby who’s got an unattended diaper load growing mold for the next two months before “mom” comes back to visit. “Ew. I never thought about that before.”
“Moving on….”
We saw little expensive gadgets. Boring board games. And soon we were in the little boy’s section.
What did they have? Mysterious sand that magically held its form as if it was wet, but wasn’t. Magnetic balls and struts that could form impressive structures. Moon bounce shoes which let feel what it was like to walk in low gravity. A gross food kit that made slime candy with a mad scientist chemistry set. The list went on, and my shopping cart got full.
While I knew she’d play with it, I needed something girly. I eventually settled on some make your own jewelry and lip gloss.
Sure enough, the toys were a hit — but it was amusing to see her sneak off with the lip gloss and while she thought no one as looking, she applied some to her bottom lip, then a little more, and then rubbed her lips together. At this point she ran into a new problem – she had no mirror. My wife was having a hard time keeping a straight face as my niece was trying to push her lips out as far as physically possible and look down, trying to catch a glimpse of her own lips.
When my wife does “the face” it still makes me giggle.