And I walked 10 miles through the snow to school ....

As part of the whole 'preparing for the baby' thing, someone gave us the brilliant idea of having Beta bring TheBoy a special gift, essentially a bribe to distract him from the fact that he's no longer the sun and the moon and everything in between. (As opposed to the special gifts Beta continues to bring me.

Playtime has become quite a delight these days: TheBoy tells himself little stories -- out loud, of course -- as he lines up his cars or maneuvers his trains or bangs his two sticks together. So I figured this might be the perfect time to introduce him to the ultimate childhood experience: Action figures.

Oh, how I loved my action figures. Star Wars figures. G.I. Joes. You name it. I spent hours and hours lining them up and making up increasingly complicated stories about their adventures. Sort of like "Lost," except without those danged numbers.

TheBoy is a little young for Darth and Luke and R2D2 with the spring-action head that makes a clicking noise when you turn it. But he's certainly mature enough for Adventure People, those four-limbed Fisher Price figures I remember so well. There were a divers, astronauts, a TV news crew and that slightly creepy Grizzly Adams fellow in the lumberjack outfit. (Because what kid doesn't like to dream about clear-cutting?)

I turned to the Internet, source of all things good and true. And here's what I found: Even the least brand-name toys of my childhood have become collectors' items far outside the range of what any sane parent would spend on their child. Don't believe me?

The problem is that today's action figures all, to put it plainly, stink. Check out the difference between my generation's Star Wars figures and this generation's. Even Princess Leia has a Mark McGwire look to her. Someone measure that girl's head! Fisher Price has replaced its Adventure People with bizarrely proportioned firefighters and police officers, which sort of forces Junior and Juniorette to stay within a set saving-the-world storyline. Where's the freedom for creativity? Where's the message that anabolic steroids aren't a good thing?

I'm sure, in the end, we'll come up with something appropriate for TheBoy. He does love his trains, and there's nothing that will please his Nana and Pop, who arrive in town tonight to stare at my stomach, eat numerous Portland breakfasts and revel in the constant miracle that is their grandson, will enjoy more than a naptime trip to Toys R Us to help me scope out the possibilities. But I find the whole thing a little depressing, and not just because the action figures of my youth were a heck of a lot cheaper than Thomas, Percy and the gang.