Ethan the collector

Today I decided to skip my morning visit to the NICU and spend the day with Ethan instead. We had big plans to head to the new Michaels that happens to be just a block and a half from the hospital. We were going to buy some beads for making necklaces while John visited the twins.

Unfortunately, we got there only to discover that Michaels doesn’t open for business until the 19th. We were pretty seriously bummed out about that, until I remembered that Borders and Cost Plus World Market were down the street a ways, so we changed directions and began our adventure.

Ethan has long been a collector, and I can’t even begin to guess at the number of collections he now maintains: shells, coins, foreign money, gems, fossils, rocks … you get the idea. His most recent interest is Pez. He and John have pulled my collection out of storage and put it on display, and Ethan has started a collection of his own.

I had earlier promised Ethan $20 to spend at Michaels, which we transferred to spending at Cost Plus. He saw many things that interested him, but all else was forgotten when we hit the gourmet food section. Now we were talking his kind of fun.

In addition to all of the sample sized imported foods and treats, they had a very substantial display of Pez for sale — including the Wizard of Oz box set. And while Ethan has not yet seen the Wizard of Oz, the characters in one of his current favorite books (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) did it as their school play. Between that and his goal of having a better Pez collection than Mom — our course was clear. We had to buy those Pez. He even wanted them enough to put back the candy he had picked out to buy.

Tonight, after having spent many moments admiring the Pez both in and out of their special box, we had to rearrange Ethan’s Pez shelf so that we were properly displaying them for all to see. And he is well on his way to having a larger collection than I do.