Sunday, January 4, 2009

Oh the humanity

Today we had a friend come over to babysit, and the Bob and I went off to IKEA on our own. I know what you are thinking, boy do WE know how to live it up. The initial plan was to go to a movie, but we discovered there were no movies we wanted to spend that kind of time and money on. Seriously, the movie selection is abysmal.

Anywho, we haven't been to IKEA in awhile, so off we went. I had just smashed my 4 cup measuring cup on the floor this morning by accident (one of the downfalls of ceramic tile flooring, things SMASH spectacularly on them), so I picked up a new, metal one, and a few other kitchen items. Then, as we were passing through all the childrens' stuff to get to the cafeteria we found this little wooden train set for a whopping $12.99 which we thought Cooper would just LUV. Here it is, displayed lovingly on our coffee table.

Here are the four little cars it comes with:

The cars attach to each other by magnets. Something about this set up was VERY VERY VERY wrong according to Cooper. At first, he was quite excited to see the box with the train set. He was excited to see the track set up. He was excited to see the cars, until he touched them. Until he discovered that they did not attach to each other in some other manner that we cannot quite decipher, what with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But by magnets is NOT the acceptable manner. The crying was astounding. The wailing was loud. There was a minor tantrum. I had to pick him up and remove him from the room, while his father removed all but one car from the track. Eventually he calmed down, and then proceeded to play nicely with just the one car. We can only assume that he wanted them to stay attached when he picked them up, which they sort of do, but not really. If you pull on them at all they pull apart. They stay together if you are driving them around the track, but that was not enough. I am not sure what we will see in the future should we introduce the other cars. Since I don't really enjoy the crying and gnashing of teeth with regard to Cooper, we may well only allow one car at a time. But it might make a good party trick. "Wanna see something loud and amazing? Give my kid two or more of these cars." Or it may be a good way to get rid of pesky house guests.

4 comments:

Crabby McSlacker said...

The train set was only 12.99? Ikea is amazing.

That's too funny about the multiple-train angst!

mkosboth said...

It really was cheap and pretty nice quality. Supposedly there are more parts you can get too.

Chip said...

Just have Bob replace the weak magnets with rare earth magnets, or permanent magnets. The lil' cars'll WHACK together and stay stuck. Of course you'll want to make sure Coop's digits are out of the way. Plus the cars will move on their own too. Toward any magnetic object in range. That'd cause all new angst with it appearing to be haunted.

N said...

Ikea needs to come to Denver. That train set looks fantastic. If Cooper doesn't want those cars, you can send 'em my way!

Oh, and Axel recently got very angry with some wooden fruit that velcros together. It was stuck together too well, or not well enough, or something. Apparently toddlers have very strong opinions about how things should and should not connect.