The Wilsons

Consider this a half-retraction of my previous post.  Tonight, Melodia and I were out with the kids doing some shopping.  After Walmart, we headed over to Target, where we’d told the kids that we’d look at toys with them after we finished shopping (Wil needed a new winter coat and boots).

So we’re going throught the toy aisles looking at toys.  Melodia had to step out to change Izzabelle, and I was looking at the Fisher Price GeoTrax with Wil and McKinley.  I thought, I might as well check and see if Wil’s on any boxes.  I noticed that the GeoTrax airplane track set he’d modeled for had two different kids on the box in different pictures.  So I turned it around.  It had a total of four different kids and pictures. That got me to thinking that a shot of Wil may have been used on something, as it wasn’t just one kid’s shot on this toy.

Just then, Melodia returned.  I told her I’d been looking for Wil.  She said that Wil had modeled for the yellow airplane.  The big set that contains all the track runs about $45 and comes with the shuttle.

I looked at the shelves in front of me and saw that they carried two additional add-on planes, and one, was the yellow plane. It’s the Fisher Price GeoTrax Remote Control Airplane Set: “The Most ‘Daring’ Team: Meet Loopy Loco and Darren.”

So, I grabbed it and turned it around. And what did I see? Wil’s picture.

I turned to Melodia and said, “Wil’s on the box.”  She didn’t believe me.  She looked at the box closely, questioning her own eyes in seeing whether or not this was Wil.

Now, not that a mother wouldn’t recognize her own kid, but, I shaved Wil’s head back in June for the summer.  His hair was quite long before that, and it was long-haired Wil that had had this photo shoot.

So seeing him like that, it took her about 15 seconds to come to the conclusion that it was Wil.  Plus, there was some disbelief that had to be overcome.  I mean, this is in toy stores everywhere.

We both were tremendously excited, and made calls to our parents, and to Melodia’s brother.  Before we’d even made it home, Melodia’s dad had been to target in Tampa, FL to purchase it.  

And while we were sitting her tonight, just moments before I started writing this, her brother called trying to find it in a Target in San Antonio, TX.  She was on the phone with him the moment he saw the yellow airplane and flipped it around.

Yeah, it’s a cool thing to think that Wil’s picture is on a toy on the shelves of thousands of toy stores (Targets, Walmarts, Toys ‘R Us’, etc.) across the United States.  How’d Wil do at seeing his own picture on the back of the box?  Well, he was pretty humble for a new star, “yep, there I am.”