Taylor’s pay-puh

A few weekends back, Chris was attempting to finish-up reading the Sunday paper and Taylor was trying to help him. And by HELP, I mean she was ripping each section out of his hands and crumpling and tearing them while squealing with delight. Not only forcing Chris to hone-in on his speed reading skills, but covering our living room floor with homemade confetti. So she was essentially HELPING me keep the house clean as well, because after she was done I was obligated to sweep the floor for the billionth time that day. And I don’t know Mr Swiffer Sweeper personally, but I’m guessing he had both a destructive toddler AND a shedding chocolate lab in his household as well.

So. After finishing up the literary achievements of our local paper, Chris started browsing through the many advertisements, all with Taylor’s help of course, and half-way through he called me over to the couch with the oh-so-familiar, Hey, Come see what your daughter is doing. So I grabbed the dust pan and walked over, only to find our little peanut totally engrossed in one of the shiny, colorful ads from the paper. The Toys R Us ad. And both Chris and I looked at each other and said, She can’t possibly know what she’s looking at, right? And when I asked her, T, Whatcha looking at? She looked up for a millisecond and then put her head back down and pointed at the ad and said, DOH-RAH. And, sure enough, right there was a picture of a dancing Dora the Explorer doll. Right next to a Tickle Me Elmo doll, and when her eyes focused away from Dora, she pointed right at it and whined, EL-MOH.

And after she and Chris went through the rest of the ad, pointing out every baby doll and familiar cartoon character on all the pages, she jumped down off the couch with the Toys R Us ad still clutched to her chest, and went over to her toys, plopped down and looked at the ad AGAIN. And she continued to do this for the next hour or so, just browsing through each page and verbally pointing out what she recognized. BAY-BEE (baby), CAH (car), CUH-KEY (Cookie Monster). And by the time she had leafed through it for the tenth time, the pages were all crinkled and starting to tear. And being the OCD-Momma that I am, I waited for her to turn her back and then tried to throw it in the recycling. And, OH, the shrieking and crying that followed. PAY-PUH! PAY-PUH! Causing me to stop in my tracks and hand the shredded mess right back to her.

And when I told my Mom this story, she just started laughing and said, THAT is just like you and Libba with the Penney’s holiday catalog every year. You guys worshipped that thing, and fought like cats-and-dogs over it. Every year when it came, both of you would mark and dog-ear everything that you wanted, and then obsess over it until there was nothing left but shreds.

And THAT is exactly what Taylor did, dragging that ad with us wherever we went for the next few days, reading it in the car, after naps, while watching cartoons. She was OBSESSED. And by Thursday, all that was left was one tattered page. And after she went down for her afternoon nap, I tossed it. I know, I know. Why would a mother throw away something so precious to her daughter? Because it was driving me NUTS, that’s why. You try keeping your sanity with an 18-month old screaming PAY-PUH, PAY-PUH in the backseat because you tried to go to the grocery store while leaving a toy ad at the house. It HAD to stop. And it did, and by Friday afternoon she had forgotten all about her precious paper. Until Sunday, when Toys R Us generously included their gigantic Christmas Wish Book with the paper. And then TODAY, when they just decided to pop a one-pager in the paper.

So until Christmas is over, if you see me, you can just assume I will have either a tattered toy ad or a crying toddler with me at all times. Do you see THIS Toys R Us? THIS is me shaking my fist at you. You and your marketing geniuses can go jump off a cliff. Happy holidays.