The Big Piano

I was just reading Ariane’s post about the toy store and it made me think of some of my own experiences. When we go to the big Toys R Us store in Times Square it’s the same deal — she can walk by aisles of Barbie dolls and Dora the Explorer toys without even a glance at anything. Instead she’ll head straight to the big ferris wheel.

FAO Schwarz is one of her favorite (and compulsive) stops on any trip to Central Park.

“Go to carousel. Go to zoo. Go to FOShwarz. Go to Apple store. Take the train, go home,” she’ll say on our way out the door on a Sunday afternoon, reciting her agenda and expectations for the day. At FAO she will immediately head to the hackysack kiosk, not to play with anything or watch the other kids playing, but to watch herself in the video monitor.

From there we head upstairs to the big piano and she’ll easily spend an hour running back and forth across the keys. Occasionally she’ll look at a train set afterward, if she can control the button that makes it stop and start.

We passed a toy counter filled with stuffed Sesame Street characters and I tried to engage her interest.

“Who is this Emma?”
“Cookie monster.”
“And who is this?”
“Big Bird.”

She had no interest in any of it but at least she answered the questions. And so it goes. The one exception:

Sometimes when we pass the section with the frilly princess dresses, she will stop and hold one up and say, “Pretty dress.”

And if it’s really pretty, she might add, “Get it daddy.”