Jack ‘n Tracie

When you have 7 children, one of the first things you do on Christmas morning (after your nap) is break down the boxes and gather up as much garbage as possible. If you’re like us, you try to keep things as organized as possible while opening presents. Wrapping paper straight into garbage bags, and don’t open toys in boxes until we’re all done.

So this year was no exception. As soon as the kids wrestled their new loot out of the boxes, we promptly broke down those boxes and added them to the recycling. Makes sense, right? I mean, if we didn’t, our whole house would be overrun by 7 kids’ empty boxes!

Santa brought Cody a cool Humvee Remote Control Car on Christmas, similar to the one Casey got for his birthday last year. Unfortunately, when we put the batteries in, it turned into a “Nova”. (No Go)

The darn thing would not work. Jack took it apart with Cody waiting as patiently as any 4 year old who just got his first remote control car could. Jack discovered the contact points weren’t contacting. He tried modifying it. In fact he spent HOURS upon HOURS trying to make the car work. And he was successfully many times. So he’d put the thing back together only to have it not work again. He worked on it for a couple WEEKS. Fortunately Cody had plenty of other new things to play with so we distracted him with that.

Finally, Cody patiently asked if he could just play with it anyway and just push it around like a non-remote control vehicle. We let him.

Yesterday we had a bunch of errands to run and at the top of our list was a trip to Toys R Us to exchange the car. Fortunately, Santa slipped me the receipt.

I was a bit worried that they’d give me a hassle about not having the box. And I was right. First thing the salesperson said was we could exchange it only but they would have to keep the box for the new one. Fine by me.

Unfortunately, after we went up and down isle after isle, we discovered they no longer carried that particular car. They carried a much bigger version, though. When I explained this to them, she pushed the car towards me and said all we could do was contact the manufacturer and see if they’d send us a replacement.

NO! I had told Cody we were getting him a working remote control car THAT day and I was not leaving with that broken car. The salesperson and I argued back and forth for a bit. She pointed to the big sign that says that remote control vehicles cannot be exchanged/returned without a FACTORY SEALED box. (????) I said that was crazy because how could we discover it didn’t work without opening the box? I gave up and asked to speak to her manager.

The manager was MUCH nicer. I gave her the sob story version. heh. (”My four year old has been waiting patiently since CHRISTMAS!”) She said the best she could do was give me in-store credit. Um, that was perfect! Now we can pick out something else and everyone wins.

Cody picked out the Batmobile of course. Unfortunately, it required special batteries that Toys R Us was out of. When we explained that he could get the Batmobile, he still wouldn’t be able to use the remote till we found the right battery pack (which I might add was way more money than I wanted to pay for a 4 year old’s first remote control vehicle), Cody chose the Incredibles Vehicle instead. (Cody calls it his “JackJack car”.) He was so cute carrying the box proudly through the store and at the counter he practically pushed the lady ahead of us out of the way so we could pay for it.

He carried it to the car himself, and he held it in his lap for the rest of our outing. As soon as we got home he made a dash for his room and started ripping open the box. I had to stop him, however, as I wasn’t about to lose THIS box.

Once we got all the batteries in, Casey got his Humvee out and all four boys (Jack and Kevin included) have been in Remote Control Car Heaven since. They played with them up until it was time to watch a movie together and then go to bed, and first thing this morning they created an obstacle course and all I’ve heard all morning is “vroom vroom” and some giggles, and even some arguing about who cheated on the obstacle course.

I should also add that Cody has been a gem about this whole ordeal. There wasn’t one tear when it didn’t work, no fits or whining when he couldn’t have the Batmobile. He was quite patient for a 4 year old!