This toy brought to you by Home Depot

We went to Toys R Us a few nights ago to find the perfect first birthday gift for my niece. From the highway, the store appeared to be quite a bit larger than the Waco store, so I was excited to go see what it was like. The short of it is I was very disappointed. It was indeed larger, but it seemed to me that it was mostly stocked for children (and gamers) ages 4 and up. I certainly didn't expect to leave there empty-handed. The Waco location is laid out in an easy to understand fashion. The shelves are all parallel to one another, and the toys are shelved by age appropriateness with brands grouped together. The Charlottesville location is laid out all goofy, sort of like a maze in places. Very angular. And very annoying. I think the toys are supposed to be grouped by age appropriateness, but it was hard to tell. And definitely hard to find the right section! When I finally did find the baby & toddler toys, I was surprised by how few choices there were for a one-year-old. My best option seemed to be a really annoying bilingual singing Leap Frog toy. If he sings more than one little song, I certainly couldn't figure out how! So why should I believe my niece would? That toy was destined to drive my sister crazy, even though she would have liked the English/Spanish aspect of it. So it can just keep on singing in the Toys R Us, as far as I'm concerned.

While wandering through the labyrinth, desperately seeking a Fisher Price basketball hoop for toddlers, Britt made the comment that toys aren't made by toy companies anymore. They are made by product companies and non-toy brand names. There was a whole section of McDonald's toys. Imagine how many children are out there pretending to be a McDonald's employee, saying "Welcome to McDonald's...may I take your order" (just like on the commercials, certainly not in the restaurant) to their pint-sized customers and serving up plastic fries and Big Macs. What aspirations they must have! Closeby were the toy-sized housekeeping items by O'Cedar (and even in the aisle carton you would see at Wal-Mart or Lowe's)--brooms, mops, dust pans, etc. Did we have stuff like that? Yeah, probably. But I bet they had a Hasbro, Tyco, or Matel label. Not that of a known household product brand. Just around the 45 degree corner was a whole aisle of Home Depot toys, mostly power tools. These were cool toys. (I'm a power tool Mama.) After we played with the fairly realistic-sounding chain saw for a while (the "chain" even went around!), we moved along to continue the long hunt for toddler toys brought to you by Fisher Price. Britt was right about the toy brands. What happened to the simple toys of our childhood? Where have all the Hasbro toys gone?

Later, Britt said he had read in US News some time ago that Toys R Us is considering no longer dealing toys. What!? TOYS R Us not carrying toys!?? Apparently Wal-Mart is taking them to the cleaners just like they are every other moderately-priced category of sales. Sam Walton is posthumously taking over America. Before long toys will all be labeled "Sam's Choice." Move over, Home Depot.