We've been buying things for our baby

We’ve gone to town over the past few weeks, buying up big for our boy! My wife and I heard an ad on the radio for the ‘Big W Toy Spectacular’, which started at midnight the other night and I didn’t think much of it, until she asked if we were going. I thought about it and it twigged – this is the sort of thing I will be doing for the next phase of my life, buying toys for kids! I did get a bit excited at the thought of building up a Lego collection as my brothers and I had a sizeable one when we were younger and loved it.

So we stayed up until midnight and drove to the local shopping centre. There were a heap of cars there already, and more arriving by the second. I couldn’t believe people were this eager to spend money, but with no deposit lay-by it made organising Christmas more attainable for a lot of people.

We walked into the store and it almost felt like Christmas already – there were people everywhere, running around and pushing trollies all around the place and trying to beat each other to the best bargains. We could pretty quickly see that no one was really going to miss out, so we got a trolley and took our time walking around.

The toy sale was a great marketing ploy, with the ‘after hours exclusive access vibe’ making me feel like we were in on a big secret. We walked past displays of all sorts of toys and I evaluated each one for appeal, cost, stage of life a child would use it, and finally, whether I too would want to play with it! We bought so much stuff in the end, some of which includes:

• Pull-along Animal Train set (a nice big, colourful one for infants)
• A play kitchen, where my son will learn to cook like Gordon F*cking Ramsay
• A toy BBQ, so he can cook summer dinners with Dad
• A chainsaw and lawn mower, to help dad keep the yard clean
• A vacuum cleaner, to help Mum tidy up
• Play-Doh activity table
• Etch-a-sketch, because they’re always fun!

So, we’ve basically got his first two years of Christmas and Birthday sorted out as you can see, though I suspect our boy may get them quicker than that…