I’m a recovering Playmobil addict

There really should be a PA group - Playmobil Anonymous that is.   If you haven’t started down the Playmobil road yet DON’T.  Yes, I know those people are cute with their happy faces and movable arms, legs, hands and heads.  They come with incredibly tiny and realistic accessories that keep my kids entertained for hours.  Forget about simply encouraging imaginative play - they actually create it.

Grandma started it all buy buying Chicken Little a pirate ship for his third birthday.

Never having been exposed to pirates, he really wasn’t quite sure how to play with it. But I knew. It was fun just making the crew climb the rigging up the crow’s nest, attaching Captain Hook’s good hand to the wheel, hanging one member from the rigging with the grappling hook and putting the rest of the crew down below to eat.

The problem is once you open up that first box there is a mini catalog inside showing both you and your child all the extra accessories that go with that playset. It’s suddenly not good enough that you have the excavator and driver with removable hat. You need to get the backhoe. Then you need the dump truck so that when the tractors have filled their scoopers with kidney beans from the pile on your living room floor they have somewhere to put them. Then you need to get the cement truck so that you can churn them around and pour them out. Then Chicken Little begged and pleaded with me to buy him the porta potty so the driver could take a potty break. “But if we don’t get it they’ll have accidents in their pants!” Something near and dear to his heart so of course I obliged him. But that wasn’t enough either. He cried and cried for the office so they could manage their job site. My husband finally put his foot down.

So we started on castles and knights instead.

Now almost two years later our house is swimming in Playmobil but each piece is a cherished and well-played with item. It probably helps that we have a small house so the rule is only 2 large things out at once. That keeps everything special and fresh.

Chicken Little still reads the catalogs and pines for the things he doesn’t have. We had several long discussions about how Santa knew daddy had said absolutely no jail with breakout bars for the bad guys. It was tempting to hide it under the tree and risk daddy’s secret wrath but I held true to the PA creed. I will not buy any more Playmobil, I will not buy any more Playmobil, I will not buy anymore Playmobil. Just maybe though craigs list doesn’t count?