The Tale of the Golden Sneaker
Call me old-fashioned but when I was growing up we had toys - like actual toys - replicas of real things that we played with.
I'm not sure if all kids are like this nowadays but our son prefers the real thing over a toy any day.
Most kids have little laptops, tablets or phones that play nursery rhymes or fun songs. Our son on the other hand has an iPad, an iPhone and MacBook that he plays with (not bought for him of course, it's ours - like I said, I am old-fashion). If he is not Skyping with his granny overseas, or FaceTiming with his aunty in Durban then he is on the phone speaking to his grandfather, or just relaxing and watching YouTube Kids or Gummy Bears on "his" iPad.
It's not like he doesn't have the toy phone or tablet, he just prefers using something that he can take actual selfies or watch videos of himself doing awesome things. Did I mention that's he's only 2 years old? And he has been doing this ever since he could sit up on his own.
So we shouldn't be surprised that when we recently visited the new Menlyn shopping centre, he enjoyed himself while at the Fun Company, but had an even better time at the Jaguar and Land Rover mini showroom.
When we got to the showroom, he went starlight for the Range Rover Sport and tried opening the doors as if it was his car. The rims on that beast of a machine were bigger than him and this little guy wants to get in and drive.
The sales consultant opened the doors because he could see how eager our son was to get in. Once in, he knew exactly where everything was; the start/stop button, the lights, and of course the steering wheel is his best friend.
It's really amazing to see the way he operates stuff that we use everyday, but we sometimes don't even use right. On many occasions I have seen him do stuff on my phone that I didn't even know was possible. In fact, I think he is even getting better than me at taking photographs of food - this is one of them.
So back to my story about the Range Rover at the mini showroom in Menlyn...
Our darling child decided that this was his car and made himself quite at home. Holding his hand on the steering wheel like a gangster, moving from the driver to the passenger seats, and even hopped into the back seat, to chill on those grand bucket seats all around. He was having a grand ole time but of course, the buzzkill parents that he has, had to cut it short as it was getting late and we needed to leave. Hesitantly (because he normally gets upset if we take him away from something that he likes doing), I managed to pull him out of the car, from the back seat and off we went.
Surprisingly he was happy and didn't complain all the way to our car, which was very strange as we took him away from the great time that he was having. As the lift (elevator) doors opened, he ran to our car and was ready for us to leave. It was then, when I picked him up to strap him into his car seat, that I realised that one of his shoes were missing.
We frantically looked around the car because we believed that it could only have fallen off there as he was perfectly normal when he was standing, walking, and running towards the car. My wife retraced our steps back to the lift from the parking lot but when she came back she hadn't found the shoe. I quickly raced back into the mall, also trying to retrace every step that we took but I couldn't find the shoe anywhere. While on the route I remembered the last place that we were at and dashed towards it in the hope of finding the missing shoe.
Sure enough stuck between the centre console and the driver's seat of the Range Rover was a little white Tomy sneaker with red laces. In hindsight, it makes sense why he didn't kick up a fuss when we left; he had left a little note for Santa in the Range Rover showroom. In his mind, he purposefully left it there so when they searched far and wide across the country to see who the shoe belonged to, they would end up coming to our place to deliver the exact car to us, and his golden sneaker would already be there.
