New Chrismas Toys = AAAAgggghhhh!
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New Chrismas Toys = AAAAgggghhhh!
| Fri, 12-30-2005 - 2:11pm |
Hi Everyone,
The family and even us had the best of intentions but some of the new toys we got for Christmas have been nothing but stress for everyone and mega-tantrums for Owen.
It is the year of the trains for some reason.

I feel your pain!Jake had eased off a bit on his train obsession before Christmas but since he got another half dozen to add to his already out of control collection, it's tantrums anytime he has to leave them. He has even begun to sleep with one because I just couldn't get him to leave his train table to go upstairs to bed.I got a bring along Thomas the Tank which has been very handy for in the car when we are running errands or if we go to visit relatives. I'm just hoping he'll lay off the trains again like he had been because he just gets so absorbed in them he dosen't even want to stop to eat or interact with us unless it has something to do with trains.I guess one obsession is as bad as the other because before Christmas he had us watching the discovery channel because he obsesses over the solar system too.(LOL)
Teresa
Pam,
Nathan doesn't obsess on one particular thing...he has a few things he obsesses on. So, he ends up switching his toys all day long. His room is a mess right now, because he can't stay and play with just one thing. And when he decides to play with something different, he has to have ALL the parts, or all the men, or all the attachments. We're still teaching him to look for his own toys, because he panics, yells, screams for everyone to drop what they're doing to help him find something!!
He likes Star Wars, so he runs around with his light saber. He also still loves Thomas the Train, action figures, Legos, Megablok Pyrates, and I can't remember the rest.....It changes all the time!!!
michelle
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Oh Tina.....I know how that goes!! Thank goodnes you found it! Nathan gets like that too. Now he's starting to want things that he doesn't have. He wants me to drop everything and go to the store and buy it for him. He says I can do that because we have lots of money!!! LOL We lost one of his toys for a few months (Lego guy), but when we moved, we found it!!!!! He looked and looked for it all the time...he wouldn't let it go!!
michelle
Well, actually sometimes this has been a huge problem and sometimes not. He started loosing it with his largest lego on christmas morning, then we went to my moms and he put together (with some initial help from dad) the 2 smaller legos from the same set. Then he came home and spent 10 hours the next day putting together the big one. No meltdowns and was in a great mood. It was very soothing for him.
However, yesterday he spent his gift card from an uncle on MORE legos. Well after he put it together he dropped it and the tantrum ensued and he couldn't be redirected for over an hour. Part of it ended up being hunger but he was out of control screaming and crying. His sister tripped on the lego making it worse when he was in timeout. So I fixed it before he saw it. He lost it completely because I fixed it.
I guess over all it has been up and down with this stuff. Cait on the other hand has done great. She got 2 500 piece puzzles we have been doing together. (That is her thing) and no meltdowns or crying about it at all. It has actually been fun.
Renee
I know exactly what you mean, Pam! Last year was worse for us in that regard than this year... Sylvia got a word puzzle thing -- of course she's obsessed with spelling so she wanted to play with it all the time, but because of her fine motor issues she had a REALLY difficult time fitting the puzzle pieces together. So every time she took it out, one of us had to be sitting with her, helping her fit in the pieces, and of course that just wasn't possible -- sometimes DH and I would be eating, or changing Sebastian's diaper, or just doing *something* we couldn't get away from. And Sylvie would try to do the puzzles herself and just end up pitching a screaming fit because she couldn't do it.
This year, we made sure we gave LOTS of direction to the relatives so that they wouldn't buy anything totally frustrating for her. I'll also admit that we "previewed" some presents mailed to us by well-meaning but kind of clueless relatives, and put away a couple of things that we thought were going to be too stressful before she even opened them. We'll break them out when she's more equipped to handle them, say over the summer.
*sigh* Holiday fallout takes a while to settle down, doesn't it???
Jennifer
(((HUGS)))
This too shall pass! Weston was obsessed w/ Thomas for years (age 2-age8). He started to move away from it last year and at his birthday (9) this year he told me that he was too old for trains, now, and I could just put them all away or sell them. (I about had a melt down! Thomas and all things trains have been such a part of our lives for so long!), I didn't sell or put them away and occasionally he'll make Owen a track and let him play, but he refuses to spend any time at all playing w/ them himself. Anyway, Weston now has several obsessions-- one of the worst is time/clocks/watches related-- and he switches between them now.
We are the only ones that bought our kids Christmas presents this year. We were able to keep the toys to a very minimum. I even used this opportunity to buy Owen sensory diet toys-- so far the bouncing pony ball toy is a huge hit and really keeps him from literally climbing the walls and bouncing off the furniture.
Betsy