Birthdays

I am HUGE on dates: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays! So, in light of this, I eagerly anticipated my son's 4th birthday.
I scrambled around looking for the best possible gift for my precocious little boy, and I found it! YAY!
A "Melissa and Doug" (ooo! Fancy!) standing easel. I thought I was such a good mommy for getting my son something that would pander to his imagination!

It came yesterday in a HUGE box which Joshua promptly stated was "his." I really couldn't argue...so I didn't.

I thought I would just keep it in the closet until his birthday next week, but then I realized that I hadn't inspected the goods. So, carefully Jeremy dumped it out on our bedroom floor. Our attempts to keep Joshua quiet and out of our room were beyond reach, so we let him in so he wouldn't stand in the hallway screaming and banging on our door.

The friendly box showed a happy preschooler making a work of art, and in small letters on the bottom claimed "Some assembly require." The box contained 4 million pieces. It was like I had picked up and shaken out the contents of a minature Home Depot. Sheesh...

After assembly was complete, we set up the easel, which came with chalk, paint, brushes, crayons, one dry erase marker, one felt eraser, and a roll of paper. Joshua took one look at it and wanted to do EVERYTHING.
"Do you want to paint?"

"Yes!"

"Do you want to color with crayons?"

"YES!"

"Do you want to use chalk?"

"YEEESSS!!!"

He did all of them...in five minutes.

"Well...I suppose we should find a spot to put it away," Jeremy said a little glumly.

"Yeah..." I sighed.

We decided to put it in Joshua and Eva's bedroom closet. We had to pull out all sorts of crap to make space, including a white exercise ball, which Joshua quickly snatched up and ran down the hall with. I had to fight him to get it back.



Seriously! I spent $80 to get that easel (including shipping) so my son would be the next Vincent Van Gough!! And he would rather play with an exercise ball!



I suppose it's because I didn't want him to play with the exercise ball, and I did want him to play with his new artistic toy.Grrr....



It reminds me of a "Simpsons" episode I watched recently. Bart managed to fool his parents into believing that he had gone to Mexico, and as soon as they were out of sight he exclaimed,
"What do I do now? I KNOW! I'll take a bath, eat some vegetables, and go to bed early! Hheheheh!"
Children...sigh...

Comments

Trillium said…
So every day for 5 minutes Joshua gets to paint, color and chalk!! Fun! And every day, as you put the easel away, he gets to run off with the exercise ball! And you get the exercise of chasing him, and lugging the easel in and out of the closet! Sounds like a win-win to me!! LOL
Tiffany said…
So SO So so TRUE! Kids always want to play with the opposite of what we want them to do!

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