Rachel Hajar's Blog: My Life in Doha - Posts Tagged "toys-r-us"
“Thank you, Grandma”
Last week during the Eid holiday, I took my grandsons, Aziz, 6 years, and Saoud, 3 years, to Toys R Us. I had been promising them that I’ll take them to the shop. Toys bring a lot of joy to children.
Aziz and Saoud looked forward to the outing. I don’t know how often they had been to that shop with their parents. Aziz saw the Toys R Us building before I did and excitedly pointed it out from the car. The first Toys R Us shop in Qatar was small and was one of several shops in an arcade along Sadd street. Now, it has its own building and parking space, looking just like any big Toys R Us shop in the United States. I used to go to the old Toys R Us shop with my children when they were small. Now I go with my grandchildren! It seems like yesterday. Time marches on . . .
In the shop, I took possession of an empty shopping cart abandoned in the first aisle and then before I knew it, Aziz, Saoud and their nanny had disappeared! I pushed the trolley quickly down the aisles looking for them. They were nowhere! So, I abandoned my trolley and peeked down each aisle. Still, I couldn’t find them. Sighing, I dialed Almira’s phone (nanny). She said they were with the Ben 10 toys. Hmm, so that’s where they had gone to. Ben 10 is one of Aziz’s favorite cartoon characters and is about a 10-year-old boy with the power to change into 10 different alien heroes and each alien hero has its own unique powers. The Ben 10 world is divided into “good” and “bad”, so the good aliens fight the “bad” aliens. Aziz is fascinated with the Ben 10 world.
I had planned to look for educational toys with them, imagining that they would be following me docilely, perhaps even clinging to my skirt. Clearly my grandsons had a different agenda! Children are so different these days . . .
I walked towards the section with bizarre-looking characters on the boxes: reptile-headed monsters, spiny monsters, robots, man-robots, animal robots, mixed with human-looking little boys, running excitedly. Parked in that aisle was a trolley with Saoud sitting inside surrounded with boxes of toys. Saoud was busy emptying toys from the shelf into his trolley. When he saw me, he threw me one of his angelic smiles, saying, “Grandma, I want this” showing me a yellow-colored man-robot. I nodded weakly and that encouraged him to pluck another box, “Also this”, passing it to me. I scrutinized it but I couldn’t figure out what it was! It was a multicolored package and on it was the phrase “learning toy.” What in the world could it be? “I don’t know what this is” I said, putting it back on the shelf. “But I want it” bawled Saoud. Saoud is only three years and you can’t really reason with him. I gave him back the package, intending to remove it later, when he is distracted with another toy. Never argue with a three-year-old, especially in public!
In the trolley Saoud was sitting in, I noticed there were also stuffed animals: a yellow giraffe and yellow tiger, both with dark brown stripes. “Oh, you have a giraffe and tiger. Do you like them?”, I asked, picking them up. They were soft and cuddly. “Pooh’s friends” he replied, “Mine”, he added, taking them from me. His favorite cartoon is Winnie-the-Pooh, a gentle bear that lives in Hundred Acre Wood and whose friends were tiger, piglet, and rabbit. Saoud was collecting Pooh-bear’s friends. Then, he stood up in the trolley and picked yellow-colored toy figurines from the shelves. In animated cartoons and book illustrations, Pooh-bear is colored yellow. Aziz also was busy plucking toys from shelves. I gotta get them out of here! I thought.
Addressing Aziz, “I saw DVD cartoons that you wanted over there”, pointing to another aisle, and adding, “Maybe we could find Wii games there too.” I was so glad they followed me without protest as I steered them towards the kid’s DVD section. They were easier to manage in the DVD section. They actually chose which cartoon DVDs they wanted: Winnie the Pooh (again) and other Walt Disney animations. They wanted Little Eisnteins but we could not find any there. We also could not find Wii games for Aziz. So, I took them to Landmark, one of many malls in Doha.
In one of the entertainment shops in Landmark, Aziz found some Wii games. He came to me clutching a bunch, about four DVD games, and asking me if I could buy them for him. “Take only one or two, not all” I said scanning the shelves for home movies for myself too. “But I want all of them. Please grandma. Please, please, please?” I looked at the price of each. I had not enough cash left for all the DVDs! For the past several weeks I had promised Aziz that I will buy DVD games for him. I had not expected him to buy four at once. It was also my first toy shop outing with my grandsons and who knows when I will have time to go out with them again? Besides, six-year-old Aziz had been so excited that he found the games that he wanted and he had looked so anxious that he might not get all the DVDs. It was not the time to teach a six-year-old about money-management! I certainly did not want to disappoint him on his first trip out with his grandma! Fondly rumpling his hair, I nodded and told him to take them to the cashier. Thank heavens for credit cards! While processing the purchase, Aziz came up to me, kissed me and said, “Thank you, grandma.”
Rachel Hajar, M.D.
Author of My Life in Doha: Between Dream and Reality
Available at:
http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com
Aziz and Saoud looked forward to the outing. I don’t know how often they had been to that shop with their parents. Aziz saw the Toys R Us building before I did and excitedly pointed it out from the car. The first Toys R Us shop in Qatar was small and was one of several shops in an arcade along Sadd street. Now, it has its own building and parking space, looking just like any big Toys R Us shop in the United States. I used to go to the old Toys R Us shop with my children when they were small. Now I go with my grandchildren! It seems like yesterday. Time marches on . . .
In the shop, I took possession of an empty shopping cart abandoned in the first aisle and then before I knew it, Aziz, Saoud and their nanny had disappeared! I pushed the trolley quickly down the aisles looking for them. They were nowhere! So, I abandoned my trolley and peeked down each aisle. Still, I couldn’t find them. Sighing, I dialed Almira’s phone (nanny). She said they were with the Ben 10 toys. Hmm, so that’s where they had gone to. Ben 10 is one of Aziz’s favorite cartoon characters and is about a 10-year-old boy with the power to change into 10 different alien heroes and each alien hero has its own unique powers. The Ben 10 world is divided into “good” and “bad”, so the good aliens fight the “bad” aliens. Aziz is fascinated with the Ben 10 world.
I had planned to look for educational toys with them, imagining that they would be following me docilely, perhaps even clinging to my skirt. Clearly my grandsons had a different agenda! Children are so different these days . . .
I walked towards the section with bizarre-looking characters on the boxes: reptile-headed monsters, spiny monsters, robots, man-robots, animal robots, mixed with human-looking little boys, running excitedly. Parked in that aisle was a trolley with Saoud sitting inside surrounded with boxes of toys. Saoud was busy emptying toys from the shelf into his trolley. When he saw me, he threw me one of his angelic smiles, saying, “Grandma, I want this” showing me a yellow-colored man-robot. I nodded weakly and that encouraged him to pluck another box, “Also this”, passing it to me. I scrutinized it but I couldn’t figure out what it was! It was a multicolored package and on it was the phrase “learning toy.” What in the world could it be? “I don’t know what this is” I said, putting it back on the shelf. “But I want it” bawled Saoud. Saoud is only three years and you can’t really reason with him. I gave him back the package, intending to remove it later, when he is distracted with another toy. Never argue with a three-year-old, especially in public!
In the trolley Saoud was sitting in, I noticed there were also stuffed animals: a yellow giraffe and yellow tiger, both with dark brown stripes. “Oh, you have a giraffe and tiger. Do you like them?”, I asked, picking them up. They were soft and cuddly. “Pooh’s friends” he replied, “Mine”, he added, taking them from me. His favorite cartoon is Winnie-the-Pooh, a gentle bear that lives in Hundred Acre Wood and whose friends were tiger, piglet, and rabbit. Saoud was collecting Pooh-bear’s friends. Then, he stood up in the trolley and picked yellow-colored toy figurines from the shelves. In animated cartoons and book illustrations, Pooh-bear is colored yellow. Aziz also was busy plucking toys from shelves. I gotta get them out of here! I thought.
Addressing Aziz, “I saw DVD cartoons that you wanted over there”, pointing to another aisle, and adding, “Maybe we could find Wii games there too.” I was so glad they followed me without protest as I steered them towards the kid’s DVD section. They were easier to manage in the DVD section. They actually chose which cartoon DVDs they wanted: Winnie the Pooh (again) and other Walt Disney animations. They wanted Little Eisnteins but we could not find any there. We also could not find Wii games for Aziz. So, I took them to Landmark, one of many malls in Doha.
In one of the entertainment shops in Landmark, Aziz found some Wii games. He came to me clutching a bunch, about four DVD games, and asking me if I could buy them for him. “Take only one or two, not all” I said scanning the shelves for home movies for myself too. “But I want all of them. Please grandma. Please, please, please?” I looked at the price of each. I had not enough cash left for all the DVDs! For the past several weeks I had promised Aziz that I will buy DVD games for him. I had not expected him to buy four at once. It was also my first toy shop outing with my grandsons and who knows when I will have time to go out with them again? Besides, six-year-old Aziz had been so excited that he found the games that he wanted and he had looked so anxious that he might not get all the DVDs. It was not the time to teach a six-year-old about money-management! I certainly did not want to disappoint him on his first trip out with his grandma! Fondly rumpling his hair, I nodded and told him to take them to the cashier. Thank heavens for credit cards! While processing the purchase, Aziz came up to me, kissed me and said, “Thank you, grandma.”
Rachel Hajar, M.D.
Author of My Life in Doha: Between Dream and Reality
Available at:
http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com
