May the Schwarz Be With You

FAO Schwarz is like crack for kids! That's the biggest, coolest toy store I've ever seen! It was nuts...I'm glad we held off visiting it until we had a funster to drag along with us. It made the venture much more fun and way worthwhile, but then so did Betsy, Julia, and Alex!

We met up with Betz and her little funsters, Julia and Alex, over at FAO Schwarz and we took in a few floors of toys and an hour and a half of visiting. We wandered, talked, and kinda shopped while Julia got busy chucking everything she saw in the stroller...and it was a friggin' big stroller. Betz's stroller was a double wide, like the trailer she grew up in. Just kidding, Betsy didn't grow up in any double wide trailer...it was a regular size one. I'm just kidding again...the truth just sounds so harsh, saying that she grew up in a tent trailer is awful so I'm aggrandizing the living conditions she grew up in so that she doesn't feel so bad. Sorry...I must be tired 'cause just typing that makes me giggle like a 13 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. It was indeed a double stroller, and was indeed WIDE but the only truth to this whole paragraph was that Julia was madly chucking toys in it as we walked. Sorry Betz...that was way too much fun to type.


Betz and Alexander the Great meeting Zedder and June...getting a feel for the Schwarz.

We got in a good visit and the kids tore up FAO like any good kids should. I hadn't seen Betz in fourteen years so it was cool to cross paths now that all that trailer living is behind her. Once again, just kidding...oh man, it's too easy. Guaranteed Aimee's laughing her ass off right now!


June, Zo and Julia chillin' on the floor on the Schwarz...

Betsy was this super impressive Mom, juggling Julia on a fun high, and Alex who was hangin' off of her like a giant piece of costume jewelry. She was visiting with us, paying attention to Alex and keeping track of Julia in the universe's biggest toy store. I was impressed. We even soaked some of that Super Mom sage advice. We learned about what we're calling "The Betsy Rule". It's kind of like that whole cheesy, if you set something free and it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't then it never was, deal, you know, except with toys and junk. We're adopting it as Zoey policy.


We stumbled upon a tonne of "Ugly Dolls"...our favorite was called "Minimum Wage" (middle right)

We almost bought about a million and a half things -- an ugly doll, this wicked cool home meth amphetamine kit, some Lego -- and might have to sneak back to scoop up another stuffed jellyfish (we didn't see them until we'd already left the store and spied it through the window). Zoey had her eyes on a stuffed Elmo and she nearly got this awesome "Ugly Doll" named Minimum Wage but we ended up grabbing a couple of books and this awesome bowl that suctions itself to a table. We probably could have jacked up the credit and took the whole store home but we practiced some restraint.


June and Zo communing with a stuffed Elmo...we used "The Betsy Rule" and left him there.

The book sections were Zoey's favorite as more often than not the tags on toys were just as thrilling as the toys themselves. She's a bit of a book hound though and we make it a point to buy her books whenever we can. I'm sure there'll come a time when such a chore is taxing on the finances, but for now we love the enterprise, mostly Dad, in fact. He'll drop his entire stash of personal spending money on books without breaking a sweat, then Mom is the one she likes to hear read to her. Shrug...


Zo could sit and read for hours...well, many minutes...but a long time in baby terms.

It was a fun morning, and the kids were pretty great considering the crazy place their parents dragged them to. Not sure when we'll see Betz again so it was nice to squeeze in a visit. If we keep to the schedule of coming back to NY every year then we'll see her regularly, if we don't...well then I suppose we won't. I never really hung out with Betz, and knew her almost exclusively through a friend, Aimee, but we always got along easily and today felt just the same...a simple slip into conversation and a no-worries hour of visiting. It was nice.


Lunch time...for Alex and Zoey, that it. The rest of us would have to wait.

We might have to make a yearly visit to FAO Schwarz...just as much for Mom and Dad as for Zo. As long as Betz is in town we can get a visit in, and then, of course, there is the city that FAO in smack dab in the middle of...Zo gets toys and we get NY. Good deal, I think.