The Toy Fairy

The Toy Fairy visits my grand children's home at night, not every night but she drops by unexpectedly, leaving with whatever toys haven't been picked up and put away. We don't know where the toys go. So my daughter has trained the kids to pick up up their things before they go to bed. Isn't that the cleverest idea? I think it's great -- avoid the middleman, I always say! However, my grand son is "cleverer."

They were picking up their toys the other night, well, JD wasn't, but his older sister was while he lolly gagged around not doing much in the helping department. So, his mom set the timer and told him if his toys weren't picked up by the time the buzzer went off, he could say adios to his toys. He paid little if any attention to her.

When the buzzer went off at the end of five minutes and his toys were still strewn all over the family room floor, she proceeded to pick them up telling his that the Toy Fairy would be by later and he'd most probably lose the privilege of playing with them.

He got a little frantic, running around looking for something--he said was looking for something to give the Toy Fairy. My daughter kept asking him what it was. It took him a while to articulate it (after all, he's not quite three yet) but then he got his words together and said, "I want the rules. I want to give the Toy Fairy back her rules. I don't like them."

Clever, huh? Not quite three, already outsmarting his mother and the Toy Fairy. Sometimes it's really hard not to laugh at the things he does and says, like calling the UPS truck the NEW PS Truck. And he calls the people who live next door, the next store neighbors, cute, huh?

Cute comes in handy especially when he does things like smear liquid soap on the floor of the shower stall so he can slide while the baby's being fed .... ah to be almost three!