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It's a "AAA" Christmas

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Contributed by: Connie Massa on 12/6/2007

I became a grandparent for the first time this past June.

Baby Luke entered the world on June 29th. A healthy, baby boy with a load of black hair and deep brown eyes. It was an instant love affair.

It's been twenty some years since I have fed, changed or rocked anything that little. Watching him grow these last five months has been a stroll down memory lane. Slowly but surely, it's all coming back to me.

With the holidays fast approaching, I am brainstorming for that perfect gift that only a grandparent can give. He's growing by the minute so an outfit is imminent. But Christmas is for children, so a trip to the local toy store is a necessity.

Now, I've barely crossed the threshold of a toy store in many years. To say I'm out of touch with the new "hot toys" is a gross understatement. After entering the store, it was painfully apparent just how foreign everything was to me.

I wind my way through the maze of aisles and come upon one that looks like it might be the right age group. I see familiar names like Playskool and Fisher Price on the boxes. There's enough toys here to fill a semi truck, so I'm sure I can find something .

I mosey down the aisle surveying the choices. It's staggering to say the least! There are books that talk and sing, car dashboards that honk and blink, talking animals, trucks and tractors that roar and spin and circus trains that whistle and play music. That's just a fraction of what is displayed. I feel my first ever panic attack coming on.

My eyes search wildly for any toy that looks familiar to me. I find the nearest clerk and anxiously ask where to find the stack rings.

"The what?" she quips

"You know, the spindle that has six colored rings you stack on it," I say.

"Oh, that," she sighs "It's here on the end display with the other classic toys."

Classic toys? I never knew there was such a thing. On this display were many of the toys I bought for my kids. None of them blinked, talked, whistled or roared. They didn't run on batteries, just the curiousness and ingenuity of the child. At that very moment I had a toy epiphany. It was clear to me what I had to buy for Luke.

I picked up the stack rings and placed them in my cart. I then went back to the first aisle and picked up the loudest, brightest, whistle blowing, blinking, talking, roaring, singing, music playing, spin around, battery charged toy on the shelf.

I left the store feeling fulfilled.

I decided to give my turbo charged toy a pre-Christmas trial run when Luke came to visit last weekend. At five months old he almost had his first panic attack! There was so much stuff dangling from this toy he didn't know what to grab first. If he could talk, I'm sure the word mother lode would have come out of his mouth.

I don't think the stack rings stand a chance against this electronic wonder. I think I'll keep them at my house. No sense in embarrassing myself by tripping down memory lane twice.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Connie Massa

Castle Rock , CO

Connie Massa has posted 23 stories and 3 comments since joining on 10/2/2007. Connie Massa 's average story rating is 5.

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