Overseas factories have nothing on my local Kinkos lamination machine.

Shortly after seeing Lego Batman with Mama, Nashi received two stickers at the grocery store: Lego Batman and Lego Robin. He ended up having hours of fun just holding the peeled sticker in his hands and running around doing the Batman voice. He also instructed me to do the Batman voice and run around with him.

He cried when the Batman sticker ripped in two. Acting quickly, I did the Batman voice and screamed in pain from getting ripped in two. That cheered him up and he continued to play with the haphazardly repaired Batman sticker. We’ll save the discussion of why hearing Batman screaming in pain cheers him up for the therapist’s couch.

Still, the life expectancy for this sticker was clearly short. Enter: Google Image search and color printing. I found all the characters and printed them out. Took it to Kinkos and laminated. Cut around them, making sure not to leave sharp edges, and boom! Durable “toys” are born. Then, because I was in the zone, I even repurposed a box of tea bags into a Batman Box to give them a place to live.

Nashi is back to running around with them having a great time. This is a theme I try and think about when I’m making choices about what to buy for Nashi. There’s a lot of joy and creativity in that brain and my job is to keep it well fed, which doesn’t always require a trip to Target. Like many kids, he gets obsessed with something then suddenly it’s on to the next thing. We don’t need a trail of forgotten toys in its wake.