Ah, kids...

[vintage spideyfan]

I guess it was only a matter of time, but my three year old son finally invaded my collection. I walked into my bedroom to find a trail of PEZ candy leading into our bathroom. I continued to follow the trail which led me to our bath tub containing the following: one spiderman pez dispenser, one demolished plastic bubble and card (ripped to shreds). After assesing the situation, it was clear that several pieces of the aforementioned candy had been ingested. Usually not a big deal, but unfortunately this candy is 30+ years old...LOL!! Luckily, as of this posting, there have been no reported illnesses or unusual symptoms...

[SlipperyLilSuckers]

Glad it wasn't a MOC Mego...and that he is fine...

[Riffster]

not sure my reaction to that would be.. urge to kill happens when my cats are found on the top shelf of my comics

[DocDrako]

You handled it well. One day after work my wife pulled me aside to inform me that my one year old had broken one of my Megos. I was surprised that I didn't freak out. I just said, "I can fix it." And I fixed it.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

With my house with a 6 year old and an almost 4 year old, the really valuable pieces are not in easy to access locations. Kudos for taking it in stride. When I was a kid, I didn't have a parent telling me "this looks like a toy, but you must leave it in the package and not play with it." It must be confusing at times.

[vintage spideyfan]

Glad it wasn't a MOC Mego...and that he is fine...

Me too!! I was pretty angry at first, but the anger morphed into concern after realizing he had actually eaten some of the candy. Now I'm laughing about it. The MOC PEZ dispenser isn't an extremely valuable item, but is still somewhat tough to find. Oh well...LOL!!

When I was a kid, I didn't have a parent telling me "this looks like a toy, but you must leave it in the package and not play with it." It must be confusing at times.

Yeah, I'm sure it's pretty confusing. He's done really well up until now. His mom collects Scooby Doo and he was gravitating more in that direction, but she has sold off most of the Scooby pieces. Now there's only Spidey.

[mitchedwards]

When my daughter was 2, she saw the Hulk I just bought from Ebay. She took him from me and ran around the house chanting mine mine mine. That was a great memory

[vintage spideyfan]

That's why my collection is either high up or packed up. When we get our house I will have a key locked room for my collection.

Yeah, I agree. Most of mine is boxed up. I have one showcase displayed right now. The problem is the glass door was broken, so It's wrapped with shrink wrap currently.

[cjefferys]

I'm still waiting for something like this to happen, my son is 3 as well. He seems to have a good understanding though, when ever he's in my office, he just points at my stuff and says "Daddy's toys", and then points out the ones he knows the names to. He never asks to play with them. Most of them are out of reach anyway, except for my Shogun Warriors. But even those he doesn't try to touch, just once in a while he points and says "Daddy's robots". I hope he remains respectful of my toys when he gets older, and that my daughter will be the same way. At the first sign of trouble though, I'm getting a lock for the door.

Part of your problem may have been that you had the additional attraction of candy. Candy AND toys, what three year old could resist that siren call!

[kryptosmaster]

One day I came home from work and my son (must've been 6-8) was playing with some Superman figures. I had bought him some and also bought myself some but kept them MIB. Well when I started seeing figures I knew I didn't buy for him I started to worry. Sure enouigh he had snuck into the box I had them in and opened them up and hid the packages. Like I wouldn't know! LOL
Luckily these weren't worth much. They were the Kenner Superman figures from the 90's.
Rich

[rche]

It seems to help if you have some of the same items for the kids to play with, or allow them access to a couple of select 'shared' items.

We do that around here and things are usually pretty good. Tho I just found a Muppet sans the tag he used to have on his wrist. Not that big of a deal, but no one will fess up, and that part kind of worries me. Of course, things can happen when items get moved and no kids are involved so maybe I will find it in the bottom of a box.

I like the AT AT story. We have quite a few beater Star Wars items. Some are vintage and some not, but they are all for the kids and they like that. It is good fun to see the Playmobil family land at the campsite in their twin pod and glide around the lake on the landspeeder. Good and shared fun times.

[cjefferys]

It seems to help if you have some of the same items for the kids to play with, or allow them access to a couple of select 'shared' items.

I've tried that and bought a few extra Megos and other similar figures for my son to play with, but so far he's not much of an action figure guy and he mostly ignores them, he loves car and truck toys instead. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a vintage toy car collector, or else I'd probably be in trouble.

[trekman101]

My son is five now and he never really had a problem with touching and breaking my collectible cards and toys.I'm lucky that he shares my interests in hobbies and early on I showed him what he could touch and what he couldn't.He's even more careful with them than I am at times.Then there's the stuff he knows he can be rough with and with them he's like any other kid.Hell I still remember what it felt like when my father went crazy when I broke or touched stuff so I guess that has made me aware of how to handle my son.All in all I think the comments on this thread bear that out....don't get crazy and don't put the kids in a tempted position.

[rche]

I was an avid modeler as a kid and when I was 9 or 10 I happened upon my pops stash of car models. I would suppose most of these were from his early 20s which would correspond to the first half of the 1960s. There were probably 6 to 8 of them in a box in the garage and I built them all. Plus I kitbashed 'em up as was my want at the time. Some were rather sloppy, as I recall. One of them was hand brushed (small brush at that) in silver. I think It was a 1960 or 61 Thunderbird.

Of course, if my pop had ever told me what those were, I would have had some respect for them. I was in pretty high gear in the Star Wars world at the time and I could understand handling rights to other folks things. But, me and the old man have never been the best of communicators, so there you go.


At any rate, now anything my kids do to me is just a little bit of payback.

[HardyGirl]

The youngest child that I have babysat in this house was 5 years old (she just turned 6). The first day she walked into this house, I made it clear which toys she could touch on her own, which toys she would have to be supervised in touching (like my mechanical battery-op dolls), and the ones that she should never, EVER touch. I have never had an issue, and she's been left in that toyroom unsupervised, while I make supper. In fact, when other kids came over and she was here, she'd explain the rules to them about what was OK to touch. There is more in the toyroom you CAN play with than the stuff you can't, but it's explained repeatedly these are OLD, and if they're not careful, NO MORE TOYROOM, EVER. I have never had a problem.