A few years ago, I signed Jory up for the Toys R Us birthday thingy. The past few years he's been getting a call from Geoffery on his birthday and a card containing a three dollar gift card. I thought when he turned five the money amount would go up, but no such luck. Maybe when he turns six.
Since I had decided my baby boy would be homeschooled, I thought this would be a great teaching opportunity to take him to Toys R Us with his gift card. As Jory, the baby, and I walked into the store, I explained our goals. One, to replace Jory's car track set which was missing parts so he couldn't make his cars go around the loops. Two, for him to use his gift card and since he was five I would add two dollars so he had a total of five dollars to spend. Thank God Matchbox cars only cost ninety-nine cents at Toys.
We looked around for his car track set, but didn't see it so I decided we'd move on to our second goal for a while. The geniuses put all of the Matchbox/Hot Wheel cars in one section. I knew we'd be done in a hot second. I was feeling generous so I figured Jory could technically get a toy with a five in front of it. I'd make up the difference. He looked at the different cars. I pointed out his favorites, ambulance, garbage trucks, fire trucks. He glanced at them, but showed no real interest. I handed him a set of off-road vehicles, he half-heartedly put them in the cart.
We moved further down the aisle to the more expensive cars. These cars made noises or had working lights. Some were priced at $4.99 and $5.99 so my son was still in the safe zone, but of course he liked the ones that cost $7.99 or $8.99. Learning opportunity!
"Dude, is five bigger than seven?"
"No."
"So if you can only spend five dollars, can you get the car for $7.99 then?"
"No."
"Okay, then let's put these cars back. Don't you like any of these?" I asked, trying to distract him from the expensive toys he couldn't afford.
"I want that one."
I looked down to find my son staring on the other side of the aisle looking at a dump truck. "Jory, what does that number say?"
"Two. Zero."
"What is two and zero?"
"Twenty."
"Is twenty greater than five?"
He paused. "Umm, yes."
"So can you get the dump truck?"
"No. Can I get the fire truck?" Moving his attention on to the next toy.
"How much is the fire truck?"
"Fourteen."
"If you only have five dollars can you afford the fire truck that cost fourteen?"
Silence. More silence. "No."
"Let's look back on this side of the aisle with cars you can afford."
Do you see a pattern developing? Evil Satanist these Toys R Us designers. Putting expensive cars on the same aisle as ninety-nine cent cars. UGH!
I needed a break. I needed a drink. I pushed the cart to the front of the store, got a Pepsi, and took a long, refreshing drink. A new game plan was needed, let's find the race track set. We found an employee and he helped us look. No luck, they were all out of stock of the kind of race track set Jory had. I looked at the more expensive options and the longer options. Really who has twenty feet of extra space in their house so their son can race cars and see them do loops?!
Okay, new game plan. The baby asked for a sip of my soda, so I handed her my drink. What to do? We could come back to Toys when the race track set was in stock or we could return it and apply the money towards Jory's gift card. If we did that he would now have twenty-five dollars to spend. Yes, that was the best idea.
We priced a few cars Jory thought he would like to buy and I explained the new situation to him.
"Now if you want you can get the fire truck." Though you don't need it as you have like two or three at home already, but it wasn't my gift so I kept my mouth shut.
"I want a boat."
Of course you do. So we roam around the store looking for boats, then boats in the price range.
"Can we go look back at the cars and trucks?"
"Sure."
We go back to the aisle that started it all and all the things that interested Jory before when he only had five dollars to spend, no longer held any interest to him.
"I want that," he said, pointing to a backhoe costing only forty-nine dollars.
It was crossing my mind that I should hate this place.
"You can't afford that. How about the fire truck and these off-road vehicles? You have enough money to get two or three toys now."
My beautiful, newly turned five-year-old stared blankly at me as if I was speaking another language.
Back and forth we went, he picking out overpriced things, me offering up combos of things that equaled twenty-five dollars, and explaining how numbers worked because it was obvious he had lost the ability to count. At some point, I thought I was going to lose my mind and I reached for my soda. But my Pepsi wasn't in the front part of the shopping cart. Where was it? I looked in the back of the cart and there sat the baby with my nearly empty Pepsi. No wonder she had been so quiet. No soda, a Pepsi filled baby, a son with inability to recognize a number under thirty. Didn't Dante say there were levels of hell, I was pretty sure I was in one of them.
"Where are the helicopters?"
Yippee another overbudget toy to look at. We found the helicopter aisle and Jory looked at some that were almost in his price range. Score! He found one he liked and that was in his new range. But I had to ixnay it because of all the small parts that came with it. Baby in the house. He found another one with only two small action figures and it was only $24.99.
"If you get this, this means you can't get the race track."
"I don't care."
"Wouldn't you rather have multiple gifts instead of just one gift?"
"I want this helicopter."
I looked at my watch. We had been in Toys for two hours. TWO HOURS. I was done.
"Sounds good to me." I put the gigantic helicopter in the cart and handed for the check out line.
As we walked out the store, I thought Amy and the women of a certain First Baptist Church in a particular part of LA made this homeschooling thing seem easy. After two hours of numbers, I was ready to strangle someone and I wasn't sure who to start with first or how long I could keep my hands on my neck. Hopefully this year's gift card shopping will go over better. I hear kindergartners are much better counters than pre-schoolers.
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