ToysRUs should be renamed CowsRUs

I took my three-year old on a toy hunt to ToysRUs yesterday afternoon. His fourth birthday is coming up at the end of this month and he’s the worst kid to shop for. Tell him he can buy anything he wants in the store and he’ll walk out empty handed simply because he can’t make up his mind. He does like a lot of toys he sees but not enough to want to buy them and keep them long-term. In a way, I can’t complain since he probably won’t turn out a big spender.

Unfortunately we walked out of the store after a half hour with no new toy ideas. But while we were browsing the aisles (only the blue ones, “the pink ones are for girls”…) I managed to see plenty of cows during our visit. ToysRUs is actually a good place to spot cows, according to one of my previous visits there.

Here are a few samples of what I saw during our aisle-by-aisle browsing yesterday. First it was a cow puzzle (hey, we have a cow puzzle at home):

Cow puzzle

Then I spotted a cow flashlight. I found out the cow’s name is Moonica. How cute is that?

Cow flashlight

And then I saw something I’ve never seen before but it may be the ultimate proof that cows really are popular with kids. It’s a milk truck, and by that I mean a large dairy tank truck.

Milk truck / dairy tank truck

I love the cow hide pattern on the tank and the logos just make you want to grab a glass of milk. Here’s some happy cow milk!

Happy cow milk logo on milk truck

 And here’s the other happy cow milk logo on the tank part.

Happy cow milk logo

 Welcome to CowsRUs, the land of happy cows.

See a train, see a cow

The boys have a set of play trains, including some Thomas the Train tank engine, wagons and tracks from the water tower set, along with matching (and a lot cheaper) generic tracks and trains. Unfortunately they always manage to argue about who gets what trains, what wagons, what tracks and the play quickly turns into a lot of yelling and pushing. So the trains end up spending a lot of time in time-out in our garage.

Recently the boys made another request to play with the trains so I gave it a try. This time they have set up their own tracks away from each other and are playing separately. They also have figured out they could make things more interesting by creating their own scenery and props around the tracks. This is what my five year old came up with for his train track set:

Toy train set with animals and a cow

 What a busy place! And of course, no train set would be complete without a cow. Look how happy this one is as the train is going by:

Happy cow watches train go by

 Cows and trains: a theme almost as popular as… you guessed it, cows and pigs.

Can a cow really bounce and giggle?

Cows (and pigs) are very popular animals when it comes to baby toys, baby clothes, baby decor and baby books. And this fascination with cows doesn’t stop at babies as it extends into the children’s entertainment world, but it does start at the baby stage.

As I logged on Facebook tonight to post a photo of my five year old being promoting to blue belt at karate, I noticed someone had just posted something on my wall. A friend of mine happened to have seen a photo of a toy for sale on a Facebook page and decided to share it with me. It’s called the Fisher Price Bounce & Giggle Cow!

Fisher Price bounce and giggle cow baby toy

This cow toy bounces and giggles and apparently makes little babies giggle too. Look at it, how can you resist this cute little face?

Of course, Fisher Price makes a bounce & giggle pig to keep this cow company:

Fisher Price bounce and giggle pig baby toy

And if you’re looking for something a little more exotic, there’s also the Fisher Price bounce & giggle elephant.

Fisher Price bounce & giggle elephant baby toy

 By the way, are these diapers they’re wearing???

Today’s cow looks quite mischievous with its heterochromia iridium condition

Heterochromia iridium? Say what??? I’m sorry, let me take you back a few steps.

This afternoon I took my five-year old to Michael’s art & craft store (it’s still one of my very favorite stores!) to get him a small present as a reward for his great behavior at school this pas week. We’ve been using a reward chart along with a few changes at school to correct some behavior issues , and so far this has worked great. So this time my son decided he’d get a black widow in the plastic animal department. Well, this spider is about 50 times bigger than a real black widow and is absolutely disgusting for someone like me who suffers from arachnophobia. What a mother wouldn’t put up with for her child…

We also took our time going through the bins of $1 items to see if we could get some good finds. We didn’t purchase anything but I found these pretty realistic cow and pig figurines:

Realistic cow and pig at Michael's art & craft store

But right below these realistic farm animals, I find their funny twins:

Funny pig, cow and sheep at Michael's art & craft store

At first I couldn’t figure out why this cow looked so mischevious. It sure has a funny expression with its mouth half open and its deer-in-the-headlight stare. But then I got it. This cow has a special condition called heterochromia iridium. In more simple words, its eye irises are two different colors!

Cow with heterochromia iridium

In real life, I don’t even think cows ever have green or yellow eyes, which makes this cow even funnier than it’s supposed to be. But I think it makes it look cute and quite unique. Wouldn’t you say so?

I was tricked into seeing today’s cow

I’ll admit it, I saw plenty of cows on my own today and I didn’t need anyone’s help seeing one more. But this one is so cute and the circumstances of its discovery so irresistible, I decided to spotlight it as my cow of the day.

After dinner we took the kids to Food4Less, our local grocery store, to restock on a few food staples for our family. While there it was hard to keep the kids away from the piles and piles of Halloween candy and Halloween decorations in every single aisle. When I finally thought I’d managed to guide the boys towards the cash register, my youngest veered to the left and yelled, Mama, you’ve gotta come see this!

We ended up in the pet food/supplies aisle (they really sell EVERYTHING in grocery stores) and the kids grabbed this cute dog toy cow off the shelf:

Toy dog black and white cow

I have to say, I was doubtful this was a cow at first glance. The weird color pattern makes it look more like a sheep than a cow to me. That’s when my five-year old accurately observed that sheep don’t have horns, therefore it had to be a cow. How can I deny simple logic? It’s a cow, and a weird but cute one, don’t you think?