Jacob Delivers and So Do We

Jacob passed a major milestone this week. After coming back from out trip out of town to Northern Wales, Jacob tried to poop in the potty. He sat and sat for a while and was successful! Jacob has finally earned the reward we'd been promising for almost a year now. We'd go to Target to buy him a toy.

The major obstacle to fulfilling this reward is that Target has no locations in the United Kingdom. They don't even have a knock-off version of themselves, like Walmart has ASDA. Luckily, we've found a toy store in town where we could fulfill our promise.

We'd been to the store a few times before to look around. We even bought a couple of Bob the Builder toys for Jacob. I figured that was what he would choose. The major obstacle there was too many options. Jacob couldn't decide between Roley, Muck, Lofty, etc. He wanted them all at once. He started to get frustrated.

Then he saw the Fireman Sam section that was right next to the Bob the Builder items. He saw a little lap top and his heart was set on it. I thought it was too expensive, so I asked if he wanted to save up. After another poop in the potty, he could get it. He seemed okay with that. He wasn't too happy though. "I guess I won't get anything," he said forlornly.

His heart's desire

Then I decided it was a once in a life time event and it deserved a little splurge. I told him we could get it. He was overjoyed. We picked one out of the back of the stack because Jacob and who knows how many other kids have played with the front one, wearing its battery down to a shadow of its former self. He carried it with a smile through the store as we searched for Lucy.

Lucy was debating between getting a bath tub or a car seat for her baby dolls. I convinced her the bathtub was the better purchase. Did I tell her that more caring parents are sure to wash their children often? Or that her dolls wouldn't be riding in the car, so the car seat was useless? Or that we don't even have a car the right size for the car seat? These occurred to me but did not cut to the heart of the issue like the successful argument did: "Lucy, you will have more fun with the bathtub. You have a lot of fun in the tub yourself, right? Baby dolls will have more fun there too." Lucy was sold so we purchased the tub.

We raced home as fast as two- and three-year olds can go (which is not very fast, no matter what they tell you). They both clocked some quality playtime before lunch was ready. Jacob loves the laptop and has already figured it out without reading the instruction manual. He is turning into a little man! We are all proud of him.

Now if we can only get some repeat business from him. And shop at a thrift store for his next toy.

[Editor's Note: the American price listed below is shockingly higher than the British price, even after GBPs are converted into USDs; we paid only a third of that price and thought it was pricey. No wonder Fireman Sam isn't popular in America!]