Birthday Week: E and his "guys"

In the beginning of this blog there were generally at least five birthday week posts for each child.  Now, we all should be happy if they get two or three.  I went back and looked at some earlier years to figure out what I was blogging about all those days.  I was delighted to discover that many days are short stories focusing on one favorite or one attribute of the child that stuck out to me that year, which was a happy surprise.  I am going to try and incorporate a few of those mini stories this year for E as well.

When I think back to E's year, many memories include one or more of his "Guys" in hand for the ride or starring in the adventure. His "guys" in this case are small, plastic figures.  Often they are Mario or Luigi, but sometimes batman, tiger, farm animals, or dinosaurs or something else entirely that is a favorite for a day.

December 2014

This was never more striking than when we started emptying our house of toys and he carried his favorite few guys with him everywhere cluched in his hand least we pack them.  Once, when Chrissie and I were painting the Master Bedroom one of his guys was trapped in there and he cried desperately to have Brent rescue him and could not be comforted until his "guy" was safe.  Needless to say, we allowed him to keep a medium-sized tub full of his guys even after packing up most of the rest of his toys.

September 2014

 Other times, his guys were very useful to me as well.  Typically, we haven't allowed kids to bring toys in to stores for fear they will get lost or forgotten.  With E, however, we learned that letting him bring his guys kept him from touch everything in the store and dramatically reduced the odds of him throwing a fit or accidentally picking something up and breaking it.

March 2015

This week, we played with three dinos that happened to be in my bag for 30 minutes.  I guarantee his older sister has never had the attention for that and even now at 5 would be hard pressed to retain that focus.  This is one of the cool things about his guys, he will role play with them, tell stories, focus on them and various scenarios for a very long time for a very small boy.  It is fascinating.  He will also play with them completely by himself happily for extended periods.

January 2015

The people are all called by their real names and he knows all the names.  The animals are not creatively named.  They are piggie and dinosaur or mama tiger, daddy tiger, and baby tiger.  He is increasingly good at packing them all back in to their bin, but also frequently sleeps with one or two at naptime or bedtime.

April 2015

His guys go on adventures in his batman cave, batman jail, and jake's pirate ship as well as wandering around Edmond with us.  They ride in toy cars, fly in the air, and sometime go sliding or dancing on mama.  In the winter, they spent a lot of time in his barn (currently packed away, but a big favorite).  Often they need to eat tiny pretend food or to look for their mommies.  He takes very good care of them and clutches them tight in his soft fists.  He often wishes them good night or tells them he'll be back to the car soon if they aren't coming with us on an adventure.  He loves them and we love him.