Christmas 2009, money, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Christmas was spent in Wales this year and J had a great time unwrapping a mixture of birthday presents and Christmas presents. J did very well with PSP games, Meccano (hey - those bendy fingers are certainly getting some exercise), DVDs and a Playmobil Police Station which took me just short of two hours to put together. In addition to this J received around £60 in birthday and Christmas money which promptly began burning an enormous hole in his pocket.

Back in the summer we enjoyed a week long camping trip with friends and relatives. Among the other campers was M who celebrated his 11th birthday during the time we were away. M received a similar amount in birthday money and like J immediately began to expereince the same pocket burning effect. A trip was made into Bridport and after a short while in the toy shop M emerged clutching an enormous Star Wars Lego Kit. J's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he saw Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Yoda and any number of other Lego figures included. More than anything else in the world at that moment J wanted that Lego kit. Sadly M refused (very sensibly) to open the box when we arrived back at camp saying that he would wait until he got home. J has been talking about the Lego kit ever since so there is no prize for guessing exactly what J wanted to spend his money on at first opportunity.

So yesterday we made an early trip into town and to the big Toys R Us store to find that virtually all their Lego stock had sold out. I had rather anticipated this and had discussed it with J prior to going. I suggested that if they did not have the kit that he bought something small and waited a week or so. J readily agreed but when it came down to it was of a different opinion. But then if you are 7, if you have what seems an enormous amount of money and if you were in the equivilant of paradise surrounded by toys of all kinds would you say "okay Mum  they don't have the thing I want so I'll come back next week"? No? Thought not!

So a decision had to be made in the Lego aisle. I flatly refused to allow J to spend £60 on a Star Wars spaceship which would fall apart at first play and in the end J settled on an Indiana Jones Lego kit which created a plane, a jeep and which contained several characters, there was even enough money left over to buy a Playmobil Police car to go with the Police Station J unwrapped on Xmas Day.

So yesterday morning I arrived home with J, the shopping and what I anticipated to be 10,000 pieces of Lego and an instruction book. Obiously the Lego had to be put together before anything else was done (thank goodness I had no frozen stuff) and the box was opened and three packets of Lego fell out - yep - loads of pieces but thankfully nowhere near as complex as the various Star Wars lego kits I have put together. I got to work and 90 mins later we had an army jeep and an impressive looking plane - yesterday afternoon the plane had become "a submarine Mum". Great!