Guarding her four baby bunnies on the afternoon shift. Sara is standing over the bunny she named “Sweetheart”

 

My BF Amie shared with me a fantastic trick to use with the reward chart: she lets Hayden know what’s in the surprise “bucket”. He knows what he’s trying to earn. He gets so excited trying to choose between two surprises, so he is always working for the thing he had to leave behind. Genius!

I’m planning to do the same thing. Only I don’t have a lot of free time this week, so I decided to save time by completing all surprise shopping in one trip to Toys ‘R Us. AKA the Black Market of overpriced plastic crap.

Error #1: Overpriced Plastic Crap Covered with every Cartoon character on Earth ‘R Us doesn’t carry “little surprises”. Even the small stuff starts at $9.99.

Error #2: I took Sara with me. I thought if she were with me, she’d REALLY get to pick out what she wanted. No more me handing her crap books out of the surprise closet and her looking at me like, “and just where is my make up kit?”

Error #3: I took Kelly with me. If I fill up a shopping cart with stuff for Sara, what about my Chubs? She should have a little something too, yes? There goes another $11.99.

Error #4: Sara is an excellent negotiator. She knows how to make all things within the realm of possibility. For example, she always asks to listen to “Tomorrow just one time” in the car. She knows I’m too lazy to change it after the title song, and she’ll end up listening to the entire soundtrack. So her first request today? An entire Thomas the Train Set. Including the table that costs more than my first semester at college. How do I counter-offer that? “Gosh, how about this generic set of 8 markers?” So when she pulled the $10 makeup kit off the shelf, I threw it in the cart thinking it was 1/1000th the cost of anything Thomas. Bested by my 2 year old. Forget my family leave at work. They should fire me for sheer idiocy.

Kelly HATES grass. Or Charlie, whatever you prefer to call her. Put your daughter in zoo animals and red tennis shoes, and just guess how many times today she was called a boy…

The ending is actually quite sad. Sara knows she gets surprises for pooping in the potty. When we got home, she made a beeline for the bathroom and would NOT come out. She sat in there screaming at the top of her lungs, “I’m going to go poopy in the potty and earn my PRINCESS DRESS!!!” After several minutes the crying started, and when Daddy and I went to pull her out, she had emptied out a box of Kleenex wiping her teary face, also pulling off an entire roll of toilet paper. No poop. No princess dress. Oh God, the drama.

There was a tiny bright spot to a day all but ruined by Rookie Mom: 4 baby bunnies are taking their first trip out of their home in our backyard. They sat motionless all day, right next to our playset. We tried to give them lettuce and carrots, but clearly, we are the enemy. Too bad, because checking on them every 10 minutes was a highlight of Sara’s existence.

Feeding Flopsy Bunny #1 of 4 a carrot after the lettuce experiment failed. Beatrix Potter has steered us wrong.

An ultra-rare collectible shot of Kelly crying. It’s a once a month occurrence, if that. Those two bottom teeth are finally showing through her gum, and SHE IS NOT AT ALL PLEASED.