The power ranger saga

Caleb’s friend Drew was over last week and another one of Caleb’s toys was mutilated. This time it was the red power ranger. The red power ranger was found about a year ago in our back yard when I was pulling up monkey grass. A left over from the previous owners of the house. Other toys have come and gone, but the red power ranger was enjoying unprecedented three year old affection when he got “smushed” and lost his leg. Caleb and the red power ranger were in the habit of napping together, reading books together, they fought “the dragon”, otherwise known as Shaggy our cat, together. When Caleb ate his PBJ sandwiches, the red power ranger was often right beside him guarding the food of “the giant”.

Caleb and Drew were running around like three year olds do when all of a sudden Drew stepped on the red power ranger and there was a tiny snap! All motion ceased and we stood looking at the power ranger with his three attached limbs and the fourth kind of laying by its ear and all was quiet.

The kind of desperate despair that those stranded Gary Larson cartoon characters felt when they stood looking at the flat basketball on the deserted island permeated the kitchen. No one talked or moved to touch the red power ranger until Caleb finally said in his smallest voice, “My dad can fix it.” I seized upon that, said of course dad can fix anything, gave them suckers and sent them along. As soon as they were off I called Eric, my husband and Caleb’s dad, and told him to stop by Wal-Mart and get a red power ranger!

Here is what we had.


Notice the cool feature: the head can change.



Here is the replacement.



Instead of instructions it came with a tuition schedule for The Advanced Technical Institute.

All those pieces assemble onto the power ranger so that he can become “battleized” (I believe that is how they spelled it on the package) or those pieces can assemble into a dog. Take your pick.

Anyway, I eventually did get the power ranger put together. Unfortunately the assembly required is a bit advanced for a three year old, so I am constantly having to help Caleb morph the battleized power ranger into regular Joe Blow power ranger and his trusty mutt. But hey! With that degree I earned I can also now assemble a toaster from paper clips, duct tape and left over hair gel containers.

Don't worry about the amputee (that's what Caleb calls him) just like Clay, the twelve fingered guy in the Dell commercial, he repurposed. In a fit of magnaminity, Caleb gave it to Elise, our one year old.

She thinks its a maraca.