Foiled Again

Ryan finally developed an attachment for a stuffed animal. Unfortunately it's Zachary's 'Doggy', the one he has slept with for years with a place in his top few favorites. When I think of all the times I've tried to get Ryan to love on an animal; there's the monkey my mom sent, the dog HE picked at one of those build-your-own-bear places, the really soft bear my mom's friend made, a cute puppy he got as a newborn gift and recently I tried to foster an interest he started to show in a cute little bear he got for Valentine's Day. There have been a couple stuffed things he liked along the way for chewing or the noise they made, but he has never loved on an animal until he found Zach's dog in the basement(it was down there because it needs to be cleaned). He carried it around snuggling it and 'awww'ing over it. Then Zachary saw him. You can imagine the problems this caused yesterday afternoon. The chasing, the crying, the fussing, the "MINE!"s and that's just Zach. Don't get me started on the two year old's reaction.

Seeing how attached Ryan has gotten and knowing how attached Zachary already is I am in a pickle. Either way someone is going to be REALLY upset. Now I never thought I would be one of those parents that give into their child's whining and give them what they want, but how else would I keep this from happening over and over?! So I tell Ryan that he has some birthday money and we can go to the toy store tomorrow and get any animal he wants. I say he can get a bear, a monkey, a dog or a lion. To which he responds with excitement, "Lion!" I give the dog back to Zach congratulation myself on the quick thinking and problem solving skills.

Fast forward to today-
We are at the giant toy conglomerate that charges too much money for things, but has the best selection. We head over to the stuffed animal section. Ryan gets on a horse, hmm, okay. "Let's look at all the other animals." We look at lions, tigers, bears and Ryan shows little interest. We find a dog that he seems to like. We keep looking. He finds a horse and says, "This is really cute." I kid you not, he said it just like that. He has a big smile on his face and I think we have found a winner. Then Zachary calls from across the way, "Hey, Ryan look at this froggy." The horse moment is lost and Ryan goes to check out Zach's find. Zach continues to parade lots of animals in front of Ryan's face(mostly frogs) until I tell him to let Ryan decide for himself. by this time we've seen about everything and I tell Ryan to pick his favorite. He walks down the aisle and sees a book. He plops himself on the floor and says he wants to read. Oh man, this is not going well. So he 'reads' a bit and when he is done we go back to looking at animals. He then comes up, climbs in my arms and says, "All done animals."

We ended up coming home with a big fire engine.