The Boys and the Beanie Boos

 I love it when kids show their caring and nurturing side-- boys as well as girls. Though girls are often the ones seen more readily cradling and tucking in their toys/remote control/produce, boys have it in them, too. (And, also, future potential dads and whatnot, so let's encourage it).

Though my kids have often taken the typical "boy approach" with toys that means the dollhouse becomes a four-storey parking garage, they have a soft spot for their Beanie Boos, too.

What are Beanie Boos, you ask? Oh, you know what they are. If you've ever been out in public in any retail area, you've seen Beanie Boos staring at you with their enormous, sparkly, post-insanity-pepper/toad-licking pupils. Cute as buttons, they are, and they come in more varieties of critters and colours than you can cram onto a twin bed.

My kids have some of the monkeys (with extensive backstories) and family of owls which is lovingly packed in Little Bro's backpack for outings. Every time we pass a Beanie Boo display in the mall, the boys are drawn to it like moths to a flame, looking for a new buddy to build Magna-Tile homes for or to take on a holiday in the camper van.

Then it's Game Over for me. It's my Kryptonite. They could have hundreds of the damn things. But there is just no way I can refuse when they pick up a googly-eyed baby seal and squeal with delight as they hug it vigorously; when they show me the unicorn they know would just love to join the purple lambs at the next plastic-food picnic. Look at them being all nurturing and affectionate. Argh, I can't stand it. Take all my money.

(PS: Three guesses who Big Bro got the line "so cute I could burst" from... )