My kids have all been obsessed with weird things, but James’ latest favorite thing is definitely the strangest. Over the last month or so, James has become absolutely enamored with parking structures. Or, as he calls them, “cubby holes.”
I don’t know what it is about parking structures that have completely captivated him. I thought that it was maybe all the cars parked inside, but he never comments on them. I’ve started using “Hey, do you want to go see a cubby hole?” as a bribe/reward. As in, “If you’re good while we’re at the store, I’ll drive us to look at the cubby hole by our house!” It works every time.
Today I took him to get his haircut, and we parked in a parking structure. Of course, he was THRILLED.
I told him if he was good during his haircut, we could explore the cubby hole after he was done. It was like I’d promised to take him to Disneyland. After his haircut, he practically sprinted back to the parking structure. We climbed (5) flights of stairs to get to the top.
Where he proceeded to run and dance around (for some reason, the top is closed, so there was no traffic).
After he’d finished running around, he decided it was elevator time.
And then, just for good measure, I drove around in circles inside the structure.
He clearly hated it.
So I have two questions. First, has anyone else had a kid with such a weird love of parking structures? And two, does anyone know if I can throw his birthday party inside of one?
Jana from Germany says:
Not my kid. But I remember I liked them very much as a child. To me it was a large space and on the day the german shops are clossed (No shopping on sunday in Germany) I loved these open spaces where I could run forever. So I understand James love of them.
Tania says:
Not parking garages, but my 14 year old girl child at James age loved to do donuts in the car in the snow, we live in Maine, I agree not the safest indulgince, but she would beg to go do donuts in the snow so we did, I’ve never seen a 4 yr old laugh so hard..
Have fun with it!!!!
Jen says:
Well both of my kids were VERY disappointed that all four of our plane rides last week had smooth landings. Kate especially likes it when they have to slam on the breaks….
Annalisa says:
LOL. I can relate, though my toddler is just weird about cars. We’ll be walking back to our car and he will stop in his tracks and point to a car reverently and go: “That’s? a mono chassis black car”, and I’ll be like “?!#?”. Or there’s the times he will walk the perimeter of a Silverado and go “That’s… Beautiful. I wanna drive a truck like that.”
He’s 3. Neither I nor his dad are remotely into car or knowledgeable about them. I have no idea where he gets that obsession from.???
Debra says:
I clearly see one of these in his future
https://www.amazon.com/Plan-Toys-City-Parking-Garage/dp/B0001VV1GK
Kitty says:
No parking allowed at the top of that parking garage? Clearly, it’s because the space is reserved for children’s birthday parties! Just for fun, contact the owner and act SHOCKED when you learn that’s not the actual reason…assuming, of course, that it is not.
Megan says:
I wonder if “parking structure” is a West Coast term? Here in Virginia, I hear “parking garage” or, less frequently, “parking deck.” Anyway, there are a couple here that people go to the top of to watch fireworks on July 4 (and I’ve heard of other less G-rated activities occurring as well), so I bet you could get away with a birthday party! But the guests might be kinda mad when they have to pay to get out.
Emily says:
Wisconsinites call them parking ramps, which I think is bizarre. I mean yeah, I guess ramps are part of parking garages, but you can park on the flat part too…
jordan says:
southerner (Nashville)– parking garages is the term I hear most often here.
Karen says:
Commenting from Australia – we call them “car parks”. Is that just us??
Bianca says:
Nope! I’m British and we call them car parks too.
Jillian says:
I had an obsession with bathrooms when I was a little girl. We went to the circus once and apparently I was More infatuated with the bathrooms than the clowns and elephants! I spent most of my time flushing toilets!
Sharon says:
I had an obsession with bathrooms, too! That was the first place I wanted to go when I went to a new person’s house, much to the embarrassment of my mother ?
Tania says:
Lol!! My daughter had an obsession with bathrooms too at about 3, everywhere we went she had to use them and I mean everywhere….Then she had to learn about germs in school, now she won’t use any of them but home lol!!
Alexandra says:
I love your children.
Leah says:
Ha! That’s a new one, but I love it. When I was James’s age, my absolute favorite toy was a cigar tin opener.
Lisa says:
My daughter and I made a parking structure out of cardboard/construction paper that got a LOT of playtime. The Plan Toys one is cool and got a ton of love at our preschool, but if you’re feeling crafty… pretty easy to make it happen. Also thanks to preschool faves, we made a cardboard castle loosely modeled after the Melissa & Doug one. (Pro tip: a solid order at H&M will get you a decent-size cardboard box with a grey pattern already on the outside.) That’s like $200 worth of toys for the low, low cost of an online shopping habit and a trusty box-cutter.
Melissa says:
That’s so adorable! Kids are obsessed with the craziest things, right now my almost two year old is obsessed with red duplo blocks. He carries it everywhere and sleeps with it. So weird. Does James like the VTech toys? They have a parking garage (ahem cubby hole) set that my mother-in-law sent us for Christmas. He might like it, but beware, it makes lots of annoying Vtech noises. HA.
DEJ says:
My friend’s son is obsessed with trash cans. After seeing proof of this, I’ll believe anything.
Z says:
You should combine the parking garage party with that dentist party from a few years ago!
Amber says:
We moved back to Southern California about three years ago from Las Vegas. We lived about a quarter mile away from a few local casinos that had parking structures. We got a lot of use out of them. Every morning at 7 O’ clock, I would walk my little boys to the Starbucks inside the casino and then off to the parking structures we would go!! My boys loved it. We would go to the top where not a soul could be found. Sometimes We would even take tricycles. This was our morning routine. I have little boys, so letting them run off all their energy was awesome!!
Randi says:
My youngest is completely obsessed with vacuums and carpet shampooers. He watches videos on YouTube of people cleaning their carpets. We eventually got a bissell little green and he carries it all over our house washing the carpets. He cleans beds, pillows, furniture… I just signed him up for kindergarten and I am planning to have a conversation with his teacher before school starts because the first time something spills, it could get ugly if they try to stop him from cleaning it up.
Maureen says:
When my son was a toddler he was terrified of drive through car washes, but also strangely curious about them. He outgrew the fear, and became completely obsessed with them. At some point, we discovered that people post videos on YouTube as they drive through these car washes and discuss the various things happening to the car during the wash. My son would sit and watch videos for hours if we let him. He’s 6 now and still enjoys a drive through the car wash, but the obsession is no longer there. I kind of miss it.
REK981 says:
Cute!! I was stuck in a parking garage 2 weekends ago after a concert, for well over an hour. A young man grabbed his long board out of his car and proceeded to go from top to bottom through the stuck traffic about 7 times. It was awesome. We cheered and waved every time we saw him.
Jen says:
Yes!!! I thought it was just my son. When he was little he LOVED parking garages! And he loved a YouTube video by Shay called “In the parking garage”. Too funny! We’ve also had a couple of toy parking garages, in addition to several we made from boxes and drew lines to park his car. I even used to help him get to sleep by pretend driving cars (on his back) into a parking garage.
Jennifer says:
Don’t let him hear stories about people riding bikes, rollerblading, and scootering in deserted parking garages. College campuses during summer are the best; smooth concrete, ramps, and hardly any tiny rocks or cracks. Hours of entertainment. FUN, FUN, FUN!
Vanessa says:
I saw this a few years ago and thought it was so cool! So you could technically fly to Miami and have his birthday here heheheh
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/us/24garage.html
Linnae says:
Every time I read “structure” I giggled … here in Minnesota we call them parking ramps, like the Wisconsinites. I’m glad my kid wasn’t obsessed because they freak me out! And a phone call is free so I’d give it a shot even though they will tell you there is no way their insurance company would allow it to happen. Enjoy your parking structure time – it’s cheap and it works!!
Kim says:
My son loved parking garages also. To the point of crying hysterically if we didn’t park inside one every time we went to our local museum. I think the garage was more fun than the museum to him!
Antonia from the UK says:
We call them multi-storey car parks. I had a friend who called his kitten “Multi-Storey Car Park”. That would have been in around 1983 and he would have been about 15 at the time…I’d forgotten about that until just now.