The unsuccessful search for a car seat

So, I am really cutting it close with getting Blake a car seat, so yesterday we went again to try them out. Last time we went he was very uncooperative and absolutely didn't want to be put in a seat to try the fit. This past weekend Scott was supposed to accompany me to give a little assistance and to finally decide on one. Well, we had other more important fun things on our list, and this one didn't get done.

So, Blake and I headed to Babies R Us to give it another shot. I remembered that there were some cute cars that he enjoyed sitting in and pretending to drive, so I brought along my camera to get a shot of him in a Mustang :). Well, we didn't get that far and here's why...:

Of course they would have the Halloween costumes on a rack right when you enter the store so you can barely enter the store before your child is extremely interested in the Thomas the Train Halloween bucket sitting below the costumes.
This picture is after we entered farther into the store (the next isle) and he had already claimed this bucket, but saw the trains in the boxes, which are behind him in this picture. So we had to check these out.

 We finally got rid of the Thomas bucket, and before we had advanced any into the store, Blake saw a basket of Jack-o-lantern balls. Well, a ball is a ball and Blake had to investigate.

Trying hard to get one out of the basket...



...trying a different approach...

After leaving the balls and Blake unsuccessfully getting a ball, I started to realize our trips to Babies R Us will never be the same...
After leaving the balls, he found a basket of puppies...mind you, the first items above were in the short isles in the front of the store, this basket of puppies was the start of the real isles, just to give you an idea of how far we were getting...:)


"Puppies!", exclaimed Blake.

Deciding to try and get into the basket of puppies from the bottom...this picture was after I made him start to come out b/c he was almost inside and I quickly realized it might be difficult to get him back out if I let him get all the way in!

Ok fine, you can carry the puppy around. :)

On his way to the next adventure (I love this picture). :)

Ooooh, "Monkey", exclaimed Blake, which he said with each consecutive Monkey that he pulled off the shelf (in the lower left hand corner you can see a couple boxes on the floor already).

 But, the train basket, boxes of trains which he couldn't touch, balls, puppies and monkeys were no match for what we were to happen upon next...

A TRAIN TABLE WITH TRAINS AND TRACKS!!!

My baby in his element.

 It was at this point that I realized Babies R Us and Blake had won. I didn't have the heart to pull him away from this, when he is so in love with Thomas and trains at the moment. It is amazing the attention span a child can have when they love a toy. He played for a good 30 minutes before he had a dirty diaper and we had to retreat back to the car for a change. All this time, I just sat on the floor and watched him and took pictures. Actually, in Blake's defense, I have been impressed at numerous times at his attention span with books in particular, but toys don't usually hold his attention for this long.

At the consignment sale last weekend, the birthday gift I bought for Blake was a train set. Sorry for ruining the surprise :) It had a bunch of trains (probably around 20) and wooden and plastic tracts. It wasn't until I was in the Thomas section of Babies R Us that I realized how good of a deal I got for a mere $40 for the whole set.

Seriously? $40 for 15 little pieces of track?!? Babies R Us never ceases to give me sticker shock.



$6 to $13 for one train? I can see $6, but $13?? Good thing I got about 20 in my set!!

 Ok, and here are some of the shots I got of my Blakey playing with the trains (sorry for the plethora of photos, but hey, I didn't have anything else to do while I sat there)! After his diaper change, we came back into the store and I tried to head quickly to the car seats again (after a brief stop in the bathroom where I used a blower to dry my hands, to which Blake gave me the most amusing face when hearing this loud blower go on Mommy's hands. It was a mix of concern, amazement, and disbelief--hilarious. Well, Blake once again refused to be strapped into these car seats and I gave up, realizing I needed Scott with me--it is too hard to be 8.5 months pregnant and wrestling with a squirmy toddler. He also kept asking for the trains and the longer we looked at car seats, the more concerned his voice became as he started to realize his request might not be granted, so we headed back for another 20 minutes.

This time around, he had a little boy to "share" the trains with. Both were bad at sharing, but Blake always seems to be the more assertive one when taking toys away, so he tried to load up his arms with as many trains as possible. I kept having to give trains back to the little boy who got slightly weepy when Blake would take most of them. I made Blake play on the tracks with them, rather than hoard them in his arms.

Going through the red/green gate at the train station. The sign flips from red to green so the trains can pass.

Lining up the trains. Blake is very meticulous when doing this. The other mother commented on how, even though he was only 3 months older than her son, he was much more advanced in playing with the trains. He was patient with them and the other little boy just shoved them around, so they never stayed on the track. But, the other little boy seemed to be talking better (plus, he was bilingual), so they each have their strengths :)

Going into the station

Pulling the train--look how long he can get these trains and still manage to keep them on the tracks!  Actually, this is kind of hard to do since they become derailed fairly easily.

Entering the station from the front end--this required mounting the table...:)

So, even though we didn't buy anything this time around, we had a fun time at Babies R Us. :)