just the other moment...: The Case of the Sneaky Parents

Or How a Two Year Old Has Toy Radar

For Blueberry's 2nd birthday we had bought her a collection of toys called Calico Critters. There are many different family sets, ones that look like cats, dogs, mice, beavers, and pandas. She has a phobia about rodents, so we picked the pandas.
Since she has recently watched the movie, Kung Fu Panda- the main character is a huge, funny panda named Po- when she opens up the package, she hugs it and says, "A family of Pos."
So when you ask you to explain them to you, she says, "This one is the momma Po, and the Dada Po, and the Baby Po."

A Family of Pos

At this lovely local toy store downtown, where they actually know us by name, not because we buy much except around birthdays or Christmas time, but we like to go in there and look at the toys- and they encourage such behavior. Who knew a toy store could be so kid friendly. They have a train table set up to play with, and a little grand piano, shopping carts that are Blueberry's size, a funny mirror, and a table with the Calico Critters. That's where Blueberry fell in love with these toys,- ohh, that's why they let you play with the toys. ;-)

The toy store also had a booklet with all the available sets and accessories a parent could grow broke buying and at night, while she was going to bed Blueberry would look through it, always stopping on the page with the red, shiny car and telling me she wants that for her family of Pos.

So for Christmas, Hero Hottie and I already knew we were going to purchase the red, shiny car perfect for a family of Pos for Blueberry.

One day we went in the toy store just to let the kids have some fun and there it was - the red, shiny car and if we bought it today, we would get the $15 roof rack set for FREE.
That's like a fifteen dollar coupon, even though we wouldn't have purchased the roof rack set for her otherwise, but we couldn't pass this opportunity up.

So Hero Hottie makes his way casually over to the cash register, while I distracted the Blueberry by the train set. While he's purchasing the car with the FREE roof rack, Blueberry takes off, running purposely next to him, and looks at him.

Eye contact has been made. But has she seen the gift being wrapped in bright green Christmas paper?

She doesn't slow down so she must not see what we're doing. I take a big sigh of relief.

We exit the store with the most neatly wrapped presents that will be under my tree. Can I take all my presents down here to be wrapped?

But our plan of Sneaky Christmas presents starts to unravel. She keeps touching the boxes and saying, "presents. presents?" Her little eyebrows are arched and she holding back her excitement.

Apparently the kid doesn't know the difference between birthday wrapping paper and Christmas wrapping paper, because all she's seeing are presents.

We hide them in the car and sneak them into the house. Hopefully, out of sight will be out of mind. But chaos breaks out when we enter and I stick them in my room, setting them near the closets, without hiding them.

A few hours later, after supper and the bigger girls are off to bed but little stinker butt, who has the most horrible time going to bed is still up, Hero Hottie and I are talking in the living room, and she's going back and forth between her bedroom and us.

Or so we thought. Nope, the Blueberry was busy doing other things.

She comes into the living room, sets down the unwrapped car on the floor where we're sitting and says, with a big flourish,

"Ta-da"

"What? You unwrapped your Christmas present?"

"Car, Momma. Car for Pos." Her little finger is poking the box, a huge grin on her face.

Hero Hottie and I are laughing so hard. We completely failed as sneaky parents. The little stinker must have known FROM THE STORE, that we had bought the car for Pos. And she had just been waiting for us to leave the presents unguarded.

And she unwrapped the bigger present and left the little present alone.