I was standing in line at
Dilly Dally's in Rogers on Dec. 23, trying to be patient while the woman in front of me waited on her purchases to be gift wrapped as I awkwardly shifted the many adorable items filling my arms around in an effort to avoid dropping them all in a crazy overpriced heap on the floor of the crowded toy store.
My mom was trying to soothe Shiloh, who was totally over all the Christmas shopping by this point, and I sighed with relief as the woman in front of me went on her way, and I was able to finally dump all of my goodies onto the checkout shelf. We had survived the wonderland of irresistible insanely expensive merchandise and managed to come out with, for the most part, only the things I had actually gone to the store specifically to buy. I thought we were doing pretty good.
But then, as the friendly checkout lady began ringing up my purchases, out of nowhere springs another salesgirl, this one brimming with Christmas joy and a zealous glee about the item in her hands that verged on psychotic. "I see you have a baby! He would LOVE this giraffe!"
Well, by this point, I am just not in the mood to add anything else to my bill, but I humor her anyway out of the goodness of my Christmasy heart, giving her a smile and a "Really?" that apparently opened the door to a full-fledged spiel about the wonders of Sophie the $20 chew toy giraffe and how it would change my life. Everything she said sounded pretty fabulous, but I kindly informed her that there was no way on God's green earth that I was going to pay 20 bucks for a 7-inch piece of plastic for my baby to chew on, no matter how adorable she looked.
The cheerful Sophie-pusher remained undeterred. "Oh, I understand," she said, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "But if you go Google it, you'll be back. There are like 3,000 reviews about her online. Go read them and you'll see what I mean!"
I informed her that I seriously doubted it, but that I would make the effort to check it out and we would see. All the while, I am just thinking NO FREAKING WAY AM I PAYING 20 BUCKS FOR A PLASTIC GIRAFFE!!!
So then I went home, and out of some combination of curiosity and boredom, I decided to check out the
reviews. Apparently that girl knows her plastic giraffes, because I read through 5-star review after 5-star review about skeptical moms who had fallen in love with this thing. Seriously, they just went on and on about it. They posted paragraph after gushing paragraph, picture after picture, and even a large handful of video reviews touting the many wonders of Sophie the ridiculously overpriced giraffe!
Wow, I thought to myself, that girl was right. People love that dang giraffe. But despite my slight change in attitude, I finished wrapping all the presents and thought I had forgotten all about her, until the next day. I woke up with a crazy, overwhelming desire to return to Dilly Dally's and acquire a
Sophie Giraffe. And after all my initial resistance, what did I do? I drove up to Rogers in the freezing, miserable weather on Christmas Eve to buy my baby a silly dang chew toy for 20 bucks. I guess that girl was right. I really did come back!
Then, until Christmas morning, I kind of felt like an idiot. What a fool! I just drove 30 minutes each way on Christmas Eve to shell out 20 bucks for a CHEW TOY for my 5-month old! Ack!
But then, we opened it. After rinsing her off, we handed her off to Shiloh, and I changed my mind pretty quick. It turns out that the silly overzealous salesgirl at Dilly Dally's and all those crazy moms on Amazon were right. He loves that dang giraffe. Shiloh, who has never cared one whit about any toy in his entire short life, thinks Sophie is the best thing since fresh milk. He seriously digs it. The long neck is easy for him to hang on to, and he happily sits and chomps on her soft ears and nubby feet for several minutes at a time, which in babyland, is an eternity! He even becomes quite distressed if he drops her. It is the cutest thing!
Also, Sophie squeaks a little if you squeeze her, so Norah thinks it is super fun to pick up the giraffe and take it over to Shiloh and squeak it at him, and when she does, he squeals with delight. Craziness!
So yeah, it's a little silly to pay $20 for a chew toy, but in this case, I guess I have become a believer. Sophie Giraffe is awesome. I may even feel compelled to go write a review of her on Amazon to convince other moms that they, too, should join the ranks of happy giraffe owners as soon as they get the chance.
Speaking of which, if you have a baby that likes to chew, go read about Sophie and
get one yourself! Believe it or not, you won't regret it! : )
