Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.

Lemon tree very pretty...

Ummm... okay, RexRed. I don't get your post but.... okay.

Now I'm nervous that I am indeed the only one who ever felt this way and I'm passing on my own wierdness to Mo.

It's not just you, boomer. I definitely remember this issue - wanting to play with favorite toys, but my older brothers scoffing at me. But they would have scoffed no matter what I did.

And the pressure to grow up in a hurry seems to be getting worse.

Whew! Thanks mac!

I mean.... I'm not glad that it happened to you, too. I recall it with a lot of discomfort. But I'm glad to know that I'm not alone with the experience.

As an adult, I always thought it was just a way for my siblings to differentiate themselves as being older, bigger, smarter; no longer the baby. To see the same attitudes transfered peer to peer has been really eye opening for me.

If RexREd knows of what you speak, thats good enuff for me. As for me, Ive just ignored myself and dont know what Im even saying anymore. Now THATS childish

Oh! Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea...

It's one of the perils of being an imaginative kid, I think... I absolutely went through this--although really, I'm not sure that anyone gave me a hard time about it, I just always expected that they would. I had all kinds of excuses at the ready for why I still had toys all over my room even when I was "too old" for them, just in case. I was always ready to blurt out "they're collectibles" or "I use them to draw from" or something...

I don't know if this counts or not...perhaps more "kids" than "baby" stuff....but this crossed my mind a few weeks ago.

I have collected military miniatures since I was a young boy...9 or 10ish...mine are 1/72 scale {a few are 1/76} which is fairly small...slightly larger than your typical HO model train...each soldier is appx an inch tall. I spent countless hours setting them up as best I could, trying to duplicate the major battles of the Civil War. Napoleonic style battle lines could easily extend for miles, even when miles are scaled down to yards, the battles were still quite large, I often covered the entire length of our front room floor with these clashes in miniature.

Once they were set up, and I got my fill of looking at them, they were then repositioned as their real life counterparts were during the battle. I never did do the bang, pow, kablooey...type thing, I simply arranged and observed them...so I never thought that I was "playing" with them...I suppose studying them would be more accurate. But I still hid them, none of my friends ever saw my little skirmishes, I never talked about them....but seriously how often does "the stone wall charge at Fredericksburg" come up in a conversation between 12yr olds. It was something that only my Grand, and Great Grandparents knew about.

Until one afternoon when I was a Sr in high school. My bedroom was basically an apartment unto its own when I was growing up, it was semi-separated from the house, and had it's own outside door, if my friends knew I was home, they would just knock while opening the door, come in, and if I wasn't there, start playing pool or watch tv. One day after enjoying a nice long shower, I walked into my room to see my best friend of at least 10 years, sitting in a chair staring at...about 2,000 men preparing to duke it out on top of the pool table. I think that was the most un-cool I ever felt in my life. Mr. longhaired guitar playing maniac, caught red handed with his toys out.

"Uh...Hey James...I don't actually...you know....plaaaay with them."

*"Nah...I didn't figure you did...I mean, I know you're really into this sort of thing...{picks up a soldier and inspects it}...how many do you have?"

"Oh about.....um....16,244...birthday....Christmas presents...they add up"

*"Is this a particular battle, or just..."

"Yeah, it's actually part of Hoods Nashville campaign...Franklin...the second one....these are Govan's Arkansas boys, he was under Cleburne...and these are Missouri boys, under Cockrell..he was under...um...French I think...they are getting ready to hit the Union center...which failed...terrible day."

*"Ah...well, pretty neat Stevie...so, what are we doing tonight?"

My buddy has yet to this day to mentioned the little battle, even when we are ribbing each other pretty hard, I doubt he had ever, or has since, seen me that embarrassed....I never slipped up and left the door unlocked with my toys exposed again.

My current count is...like....um.....38,826.

cyphercat, it's so good to see you.

I've missed you.

(roland has too)

Not so much with toys, but I can remember my brothers ridiculing me for reading.

I had two older brothers. One of them, the second boy, would not have commented in that way--he was naturally a generous soul. The oldest, though, was pure evil. He would not only make remarks about baby stuff, he would take it away from me if he could, to break it, throw it away or hide it.

I too had "tin soldiers." Only they were lead, and they came from South Africa. My grandparents used to send them to me on a regular basis, so i, as TwoPacks described, was able to make formations. Some were in marching order, some in line, and they even came with artillery sections. My oldest brother got his backside seriously tanned once for breaking some of them (not so easy to hide), so he left them alone, but i had to play with them away from him, or he would constantly torment me, and pretend he had tripped and try to step on them.

So i would go to the back of the lot (my grandparents had quite a large lot) to the compost heap (it was a compost pit when my grandfather started it in 1919, but by 1950 . . . ), where i would construct elaborate field fortifications for them with sticks and twigs. On occasions when i thought i could get away with it, i would set fire to the "forts." The down side of that, though, is that lead melts easily.

I think Mo must feel like you did, cyphercat. When he pulls out an older "babyish" toy there is always a lot of talk that has to surround it, excuses or explainations of a sort.

2Packs and Set, you both remind me so much of my brother and his soldiers. He too would reenact battles or plan strategies. His games were always too complicated for me to understand but I was a willing aide-de-camp who would help build tunnels and forts and help move the troops from one place to another. I don't recall him playing these games with his friends but when I see him next week I'm going to ask him about it!

I know for a fact that he still does this -- but with the latest in modern military technology, virtual soldiers on virtual battlefields.

I wonder if it's harder for boys? Sozlet still has all of her favorite baby toys and it doesn't seem to be an issue.

She does have a virulent aversion to Barney and decries him as "babyish" but she didn't like him for long anyway and honestly I find virulent aversion to Barney quite understandable.

But I know that the "babyish" thing comes up because of the universal second-grade virulent aversion to Barney. (Evidently their music teacher uses the threat of singing Barney songs at 'em to get them to shape up...)

Most definately - there is even an "Arthur" episode about this - Arthur really likes this "baby" show and is afraid that his friends with find out about it.

If it is on "Arthur" it is definately something happening to most kids.

I somewhat remember noticing people's opinions on what I'd later think of as the adjective "cool" or not, but I don't remember caring. I was sort of a self-involved little snot.. y'know, an only child. I hardly met any other children except for in school classes until I was eight, and I found most other children a kind of surprise - was curious, but not all that maleable re their points of view. That happened more in my later teens.

It definately isn't limited to boys. I know my older daughter mentioned about some girls in school saying such and such was babyish - can't really remember specifically what it was...but my daughter confined in me that even though they think it is babyish, she still likes it.

That's right, we saw that... Mr. Rogers, right?

I agree it's probably pretty common.

Funny I wasn't pointing out the Mr. Rogers one - but yes that fits the bill as well. It was some little ducky TV show. I think it is a more recent Arthur than the Mr. Rogers one.

I love Arthur by the way - and realized this morning that I believe my younger daughter is alot like DW - but not quite so bossy.

My oldest sister used to play undertaker and bury my other sister's dolls in the back yard.

I think Set and I both mentioned our soldiers before, in a thread some time back...two years ago perhaps. And yes, I too have burned many a candle slugging it out all night in virtual battles....Boomer, is this the brother that is in the military?

I should say, I was for the most part an only child...I have a younger sister, but she pretty much thought everything I did was "cool"...but we only lived together for a few years when she was very young.

--------

Pardon my trip down memory lane...I lived most of my life with my grandparents, their parents were often at our house for extended periods of time, my grandfathers parents practically lived with us during the winter months, and my grandmothers mother, just lived a few miles away....in my mind, all three seemed to "always" be at our house....especially during the holidays.

Bertha, my grandfathers mother, was from a medium sized town located in the middle of Illinois, I often called her my Yankee grandma, because she had a funny accent...everyone else in my family is from that part of the country, I on the other hand was the first child born in Missouri, so it is actually "me" that has the funny accent.

Every night I had the same routine, as did she...we were both huge fans of the game show "Tic Tac Dough", when that was over we would watch the local, and national news, then watch a couple of oldie programs on what used to be called...CBN {Christian something} I think...during the day they played stuff like...The 700 Club, but we didn't watch crap like that...in the evening, they had a really nice lineup of 50's shows...."I Married Joan" was one of my favorites.

She would knit...or something similar...and I would recreate my battles in the floor...I had a huge piece of carpet that I would turn upside down, the flat backing made a nice surface for a battleground, I kept it rolled up behind the chairs.....anyway, no matter which battle I was simulating, regardless of whether the North or South had won or not....when she would ask, as I was putting them away..."Who won tonight?"...my answer was always, very matter-of-factly...."The South won grandma, the South always wins."...to which she would reply every single night...."Ohhh, ****." We would both laugh, and then get ready for the nightly news at 10.00.

I miss those evenings, and those exchanges....it's impossible not to think of her when I think of my soldiers.