The One Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins

When I was in high school it seemed everyone had a shirt with the saying, "The one who dies with the most toys wins," on it.  It was like one of those very clever television commercials that you remember because the jingle would get stuck in your head or it was hilarious, and yet you don't remember what the commercial was about.  That shirt, with that slogan, was for something.  Maybe it was a sporting goods store.  It could have been a national chain or some product line that was local; but regardless, the source of the high school t-shirt craze eludes me.

Today, I think of that phrase commonly when I watch my son.  I think of it more often than not when he's in the tub with his sister.  He is older, he is bigger, and he is accustomed to being able to bully his way through a situation (unless he's caught at it) to get what he wants from his sister.  Most of the time, this means he wants whatever it is she has.

In the tub, we commonly put in a lot of floaty toys.  They float all around the two children and they like to play with them.  My son likes to tell us what each one is now.  But he wants to have them all.  He wants all the ones she picks up, but things float away from you in the tub, so if you grab one and drop the one you were holding, it will most likely get back to her and then she's got something to play with again.  So, and this is the best part, he tries to hold all the toys he can in his arms and to make sure he doesn't lose any, he has to sit still and do nothing.

He has won domination over the majority of the toys, but he can't play with them or he'll lose them.  It's like the saying from the high school t-shirt and what it made me think about.  If you have all the toys, but you're dead, what good is that?  I know, I know, that's not the goal of a retailer trying to sell you their great kayaking equipment, but that's what I thought about nevertheless.

His sister doesn't mind too much as one of us sends the other toys he couldn't fit into his greedy little arms over to her and it goes completely over her head that he's trying to play toy keep-away.

We are working on courtesy, sharing and kindness every day.  It is a work in progress.

The Big Boy Update:  Five word sentences.  More than one reliable adult has caught him saying five word sentences.  He uses four word sentences regularly, sometimes back to back.  It's mostly descriptive, where he tells you what is currently happening or what he observes, but he's chaining more words together all the time now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Rocking.  There are two rocking chairs, one in her bedroom and one in ours.  They were both presents from her Mimi, and the one in our bedroom was the one Mimi rocked me in when I was a baby.  She is currently obsessed with climbing in, standing in, sitting on, rocking, climbing out, throwing the pillow off the edge, putting the pillow back in, and then repeat until she's tired or it's time to eat.

Fitness Update:  Finally we ran.  Only six miles because I'm still somewhat coldy and we haven't run in almost two weeks.  We plan on running again tomorrow.  Hope for good weather, my friends.

Someone Once Said:  People always expect a government to work miracles—even people who are fairly bright other ways.