I worried from the start how this would end. We were babysitting our grandson while his parents attended a wedding. We had planned to play at a nearby park where Ivan could wear himself out, instead, the rain washed those plans away. That’s when my husband, Ivan’s doting grandfather, asked his first grandchild.
“You want Pops to take you to the toy store? I’ll buy you anything you want.”
That’s why I was worried.
All the way to the store, I lectured Randy about making promises to a child that you might not be able to keep.
“You can’t promise a child his pick of the toy store.”
“Why?” Randy asked. “He’s a kid, but he won’t be a kid forever.”
“What if Ivan chooses an electric scooter or motorized bike or a machine gun that shoots rockets?”
“Those are pretty good choices,” Randy said, shrugging his shoulders.
“He has a bike, motorized means something else in the garage, and his mother will have a fit about a machine gun. You just can’t promise your grandson anything he wants.”
“I can while I still can,” Randy answered, in words that haunt me still.
Ivan held my hand until we got to the toy aisle. The eager brown-haired boy first picked up a Tonka truck, turned it over, spun the wheels, and made an engine noise.
Then he moved on; so many toys, so little time.
I watched as Ivan examined and touched and pointed to anything on the shelf he wanted to hold. He knew the names of character toys and what buttons to push to try them out. His wide eyes studied the toy boxes like he could read the words and soon his arms were full of toys.
So were Randy’s.
Pops had been running up and down the aisles like he had promises to keep. Randy was actively offering Ivan riding cars with complicated hand controls, a five-foot Darth Vader with glowing light saber, and a race car track that takes up half a room.
“Do you want Pops to buy you this?”
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
