Hope in Highland Village: Toy store proprietor received’t let problem cease the enjoyable – Cross Timbers Gazette | Southern Denton County | Flower Mound

For Jennifer Kaplinsky, it’s onerous to not really feel nice and overlook about life’s heavier struggles if you personal a toy retailer. Every day, she’s surrounded by brilliant colours, playful garments, enjoyable equipment, toys you’ll be able to contact, squeeze, poke at, and chuckle with, and a seemingly infinite stream of children and adults of all ages who know full properly that there’s no age restrict if you enter Jen’s world of enjoyable and video games. 

But behind the laughter, Jennifer is combating a most cancers prognosis that has examined her energy in methods few can think about. 

“It’s normal for you to see my face in the store six days a week for eight to 10 hours a day. That’s normal for me, so much so that I often feel fine and forget that I have cancer,” Jennifer stated. “Then I am going to face up and do not forget that I’m in a wheelchair. 

“It’s like you’d have to put a seatbelt on it to keep me from jumping up to help someone. That’s just who I am, and people know that.”

As native households watch their youngsters settle into one other college 12 months, Learning Express Toys & Gifts and Neon Elephant in The Shops at Highland Village have been their go-to locations for the most recent tendencies and must-haves to make back-to-school time much more enjoyable and thrilling, and Jennifer is often the primary pleasant face they see. These days, prospects are fast to ask if she harm her knee or ankle once they see the wheelchair, and it will be straightforward for Jennifer to play into that excuse. Instead, she refuses to cover behind what’s actually happening.

In July, she was identified with a number of myeloma, a type of bone marrow most cancers that causes lesions and painful injury to bones. The American Cancer Society estimates there can be 36,110 new instances identified within the United States this 12 months. Since this illness can progress silently, many individuals don’t notice they’ve it till they expertise unexplained ache, a fracture, or irregular outcomes from routine blood assessments. In Jennifer’s case, she had began limping randomly in May and attributed it to her sometimes lively life-style on the retailer. It’s not unusual for her to be shifting round heavy containers and operating from one finish of the shop to the opposite. 

She thought it was nothing greater than a strained muscle. Unfortunately, she later slipped and fell at her home whereas getting out of the pool, and was rushed to the emergency room. It took only one X-ray to disclose she was coping with one thing a lot worse.

“My left hip had quite a large lesion on it,” Jennifer stated. She added that docs are optimistic, however she is going to undoubtedly have an extended journey forward of her. “So, now I’m in a wheelchair and am not supposed to put any weight on my left leg. The next steps are chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant, more chemo, and then hip repair sometime next year. I don’t know what else to do other than tell people left and right and explain why I’m in a wheelchair. My husband and I told the kids first. We told our staff pretty quickly and are now telling customers. It would be easier not to say anything, but that’s just not how we operate.”

In the meantime, the longtime Lantana resident takes solace in the truth that she is continually surrounded by toys and joyous vibes—even when her work schedule begins trying a bit totally different shifting ahead. After spending 25 years in Corporate America, Jennifer retired and opened her Highland Village location in 2020. In 2022, she opened a youngsters’ clothes retailer referred to as Neon Elephant and relocated it, together with Learning Express, to a mixed storefront. In 2024, she acquired the Learning Express location in Plano.

In her eyes, proudly owning a neighborhood toy retailer was the proper alternative to speculate extra time and vitality into the group. 

At Learning Express, she and her incredible group have created a full of life, interactive buying expertise that delights the younger and the younger at coronary heart. On any given day, yow will discover them enjoying video games, driving round on plasma vehicles, and offering a pleasant, hands-on ambiance for all. Providing toy solutions for kids of all ages is their favourite pastime, and so they’re dedicated to serving to you discover the proper toy for each event. That means rigorously evaluating the play worth of each toy that finally ends up on cabinets, and their product combine is chosen from toy producers worldwide. They additionally supply reward wrapping, complimentary personalization, and a year-round Birthday Box reward registry program. When you go to the shop, you’ll discover each basic favorites and just lately found treasures.

Not to be outdone, Neon Elephant is a youngsters’s clothes boutique providing trendy, high-quality vogue that appeals to at this time’s discerning dad or mum and little one. Their clothes for infants and tweens is each stylish and comfy.

Jennifer stated one in every of her favourite components of the job is maintaining with the tendencies that make youngsters’ eyes mild up. Right now, she stated, Labubu shock reward containers are all the fashion, as are Taba squishies, fidgets, t-shirts, plush equipment, bows, bathrobes, and something enjoyable that may be pinned to a cool new backpack for varsity. Whatever reward or toy you’re searching for, Jennifer’s group has you coated. 

Both shops have skilled unimaginable progress lately, and for those who suppose issues are busy over there now, wait till November rolls round. Without fail, November and December are their busiest instances, and Jennifer is at all times the fixed.

“By December, I’m usually there seven days a week. It’s that busy, and I love it,” she stated. “Admittedly, my regular schedule would be to go to Highland Village in the morning, be there for a few hours before going to Plano, then spend a few hours at the Plano location before heading back to Highland Village. That’s just not feasible right now.”

She added, “The thing I want everyone to know is that they are still in good hands. My staff is amazing, and they will always be there. I’ll be there, too, but I’ll have to work from home a little more than I’m used to. And when you do see me, I’ll be in a wheelchair.”

That stated, her infectious smile and want to convey pleasure to her group—one toy at a time—will at all times be on full show.