Matilda is 2 years and 4 months old. She does things that are very unique and surprising. Every parent says that but I thought it might be fun to document some of these things for my own memories.
Yesterday, we went to a toy store. She has enough toys but she’s getting more interested in new characters like those from Pixar movies, Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and of course, Bluey, Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues and some other ones. I took her to a toy store that had 4 aisles of 100 feet long of kid toys.
I should add that she’s very organized. She puts things in their place like I did as a kid. My dad was frustrated with me as I wouldn’t play with my toys and just organize them in place. He once took many of my toys outside and put them in the dirt to show me that they could indeed get dirty. He was worried that I was probably going to grow up very unusual and not a child who played.
Matilda does play with toys and she is creative, invents stories and scenarios and her toys engage with each other physically and verbally as she talks through real life situations involving heroism, love, fear, excitement and sometimes just dancing with her and the toys. We went to a toy store to see if there was something she’d like to buy. Not her idea but once a month, we do something after work just she and I to have a few hours together.
After nearly an hour exploring the aisles of toys and her grabbing things off the shelf, pressing all of the buttons, mocking up some scenarios, we had probably engaged with over 100 items of all shapes and sizes. There are some characters she really likes and we had a lot of fun. Despite picking up all of these toys, we got through the aisles and I asked her, “what do you want to buy?”
She looked at me and said “um….” and so we walked again through the aisles, hand in hand but this time just a 5 minute walk through and she grabbed a few things and said “this one” and every time I said, “just this one?” and she’d say “no, not this one”
Finally, I said it was time to go and I grabbed her hand and she said “okay. let’s go get pizza” and off we went.
I think about that experience and it’s so unique for a child to be floor to ceiling faced with hundreds of toys and not need to own any of them. I don’t know the psychology behind it. Maybe she was just overwhelmed but all we did was a play session and she didn’t need to bring anything home. When we got in the truck, I put on some dance music and she sat in the truck, quietly as always dancing and pointing out things like school busses, tractors, cows, horses and airplanes while we drove 30 minutes home.
It’s unclear what kind of child she’ll be but she’s definitely special, just like me.