Curse the sadists that work at Playmobil...

[JonahB]

or my alternative title, "why did none of you warn me????"

...when i carefully choose DS1 the Playmobil Knights tower. We open the box this am and my heart sinks as I realise I am staring at about 1000 teeny tiny pieces. None of which are in the same plastic bags relating to the corresponding instruction number... 2 1/2 hours later, with cuts all over my fingers, I'm still sticking plastic flames into plastic flame holders and attaching them with microscopic black dots to plastic walls. Bless my poor DS, who patiently played with only the knights for what seemed like an eternity, whilst watching me muttering curses and running out of the room sporadically shouting "just got to turn the roasties darling, be back in a minute to build the portcullis (sp?)".

Anyone else heart sink when they opened their LO's presents, as they naively hadn't calculcated into their plans how much time the toy would take to build?

have just googled playmobil and am devastated DD isnt old enough for it yet. i waaaaant ooooone!

am now off to google hello kitty build a bear.................

ooh me too - I have 3 spare roses too

Loving the playmobil thread. I am one of the uninitiated tho. I had my heart set on getting camper van. DH said no and luckily I didn't as it would have been his job to assemble it.

Egyptian pyramid and sphinx here, done as a team effort and def easier than the church dd got for her birthday. Agree it is strangely addictive and satisfying

Foxy, long time no see. Get the camper fan 'tis dd and ds' favourite.

We have the Recycle truck and that is fairly good, come almost whole but I have had two Advent Calendars and they have totally put me off Playmobil

This year I didnt wrap till Christmas Eve so didn't remove all the ties from packaging. We had a lot of Imaginext and literally spent hours removing the twisty ties

I got DS1 to put togEther DS2's Roary Tent while I had another drink sorted dinner

hiya NOrthender! Was wondering the other day if you are still around. Will have to get it for dd1's birthday in April!. Grinning with excitement already!.

your intials are SH, no? are you on FB?

Yes but need to sort my details out as I've changed email (also have never actually used fb apart from registering). I've a few days off work now so will get it sorted! How are you all?

Pyramid only took an hour to do. DS1 over the moon - it's full of secret trap doors

we are all doing v well. except that dh works away all week 3 hrs away and I am a single mum working FT during the week. that part is hell. dd2 is 15 mos old tomorrow and been walking independently since 10 mos. She is a dot but a lot of bang for your buck. the spitting image of dd1. dd1 in primary and also doing v well there. she was an angel in the nativity.

my email is yfforster at gmail dot com. i think that is the one you have? LMK when your FB is set up. I have my security settings so no one can search me on FB. it is because of my job, not that I think I am something special.

how is everyone there on the Northend? sorry for the hijack folks.

still loving the playmobil thread. this way you'll be able to tell me 'i told you so!'

I have posted voluminously about the torture delights of the pm hospital! I now remove the pm pages from the catalogues! Never again! The Barbie campervan was bad enough. 3 million bloody stickers!

you're more dedicated than me Lenin - I just thought "meh" and ignored them

Mollie, when u say that PM stays together, have you reckoned with a 2yr old DS2, who is like a human wrecking ball .

I wouldn't dream of assembling it the night before. DS1 needs to feel my pain when i'm building it.....

To add insult to injury in the Jonah house, DS1 INSISTED on taking one of the knights out with him today, despite my unveiled threats of "do not lose his weapons, or else...". Does it go without saying that the knight lost his sword somewhere between getting into my car on the journey home and halfway home. I could have happily swatted him. I turned the car upside down and it has inevitably vanished into the ether....

Despite all this, watching the absolute joy on his face for the past 2 days has been worth every yellow and red connecting square

Jonah - must be the present of choice for the 05 junies, loads here! you don't have any duplicate sets you want to swap for a reef?

I think Playmobil does stay together compared with Lego. We have Lego too but I won't buy more than the basic blocks after too many experiences of making things only for them to fall apart. You then need the instructions to try and work out which bit fits back where. At least with PM it is pretty easy to reassemble.

This was our first year of Playmobil advent calendar. We got the police one. Such a hit with ds.

I stayed at my mums on christmas eve and was cursing my brother for staying till 10.20 pm with his 9 year old dsd (much as I love her!) as I knew we had assembly to do as my mum bought ds the police station. I cried off at midnight to get a bath and dh and my mum finished it at 1 am.

Unfortunately father christmas hadn't assembled the pirate ship he delivered at the in laws so I started that at about 3.30 pm and finally finished about 10 pm after various stops and starts.

I'm all play mobiled out now and have steered clear of the lego leaving that to dh and dbil!

Playmobile problems we laugh in the face of Playmobile battle. DH did the tower in 1 hour no sweat and lego easy peases. HOT WHEELS TRACK that really took the biscuit!!!!!drove every adult (6) in the house nuts yesterday as the instructions were very very poor & could figure out the various pieces when we got some of it together it would not go right around I remember this from the 70's and had hoped that in the 21st Century this would have changed. Bugger what shall I get him next year that wouldn't do this to us!!!!?????

Playmobil - great fun
Lego - ok
Hotwheels - flipping nightmare for all of 5 minutes play

Hi Katz, great to hear from you!!!

Funnily enough I do. Want to swap the reef for a pirate island superset? DS1 loves the one he's got, but really doesn't need 2. Not sure that would appeal to your LO's, but if it does, let me know.

Despite the torture fun that is putting together the PM volcano (still haven't worked out the moss!), my DS2 has spent almost the entire day playing with the dinosaurs, even trying to get the long neck to take him for a ride?! Have grudgingly admitted the play value of PM (for any child with an imagination, would have been useless for my DD & DS1), and am resigned to it being all that's asked for over the next 2-3 years. So plenty more tearing my hair out putting them together is foreseen in the future. Ans can ANYONE actually help me with this dratted moss, I'm losing the will to live where that's concerned??!! Please??!! (the instructions for the moss really do look like an M C Escher picture....)

My PM moment of today was driving in the car with DS with yet another knight accompanying us. I hear a little plaintive voice in the back saying, "mummy, i've got my finger stuck". The daftbugger little darling had shoved his finger into the red antlers atop one of the knights helmets. Cue me stopping the car and using my expensive lipbalm as a lubricant to free him.

What is the attraction of confined spaces and shoving little fingers inside?

Jonah - i'll show her in the morning and ask, she had a pirate advent calender and has a sea theme to her playmobil sets, so she may be interested.