The kid only had one request of Santa this Christmas, but it was highly specific. And challenging: "A digger, and rocks, and sand." The digger would be easy enough, I thought. Even though I got priced out of that vintage Creative Playthings steam shovel, it was enough to get me fixated on a sweet, wooden machine [It seemed too soon for a full-fledged metal Tonka.]
But that just ended up throwing us off track. Nothing seemed quite right, and then there were the rocks. So on the day we left for France, I ran to the toy store the street, and was forced to choose between a giant non-Tonka something or other, or a Playmobil.
The Playmobil Mini Excavator, #4477, seemed great; not only was it small, it came with a doll [sic] and an actual pile of gravel [plastic and choke-hazardous for many, if not all kids, but still.]
But Playmobil, sheesh, she's still only two. Did I want to get locked into an all-encompassing universe of toys so early? [Though I gotta admit, the very existence of #3275 Portable Toilet Plus Crew was making it easier.]
Now I come home to find that, quicker'n any Law & Order writer could ever dream of, Brian at Banterist has brought stories torn from today's headlines to life using Playmobil. And I don't doubt anymore. In fact, I'm going back for the porta-potty.
Starting in 2007, we should all recommit to raise our children well so they can reach age 4+, when they can know for themselves the hope of better, plasticky Playmobil world.
Playmobil Re-Enactments: Diddy Fur & X-Ray Grandma [banterist.com]
Finally, an answer to my question: What's up with this Playmobil Security Check-in?
Related: AJ did a couple of awesome Playmobil roundups last summer [thingamababy]
I just wanted to say that kids are never too little for real, live all-metal Tonkas.
Why, just a couple days ago, for her first Christmas at 7mo, Squeak got her very own custom purple dump truck from her favorite uncle. Monster has several restored vintage tonkas from said uncle too.
So are you going to get the kid a Playmobil smart car? (3069) I want the cool looking high chair for my kids (3208)
Oh, man, I love Playmobil - we grew up playing with the (so un-PC) cowboys and indians set and that port-a-potty cracks me up every time. To me, Playmobil has such a tongue-in-cheek approach - I have the nativity scene, and it's hilarious. Action-figure wise men is about as good as these things get.
We used to play "Zombie attack" with our playmobile toys. While my lesser siblings relied on cars and guns to take out the zombie hordes, I used "the blue monk" (blue figure with blue handkerchief (?) on his head and an honest to goodness scythe) to lop off zombie heads (the easily removable hair pieces on playmobile toys).
As soon as Petra stops swallowing anything smaller than a football, I'm stocking up again!