The Glittering Prize
Alternate title: How to convince your child to come home with a slightly less annoying toy.
How many of you went to an ice cream social tonight?
Nobody?
Well then, you’re in for a treat.
But, instead of being in some tiny ice cream shoppe in a quaint little village licking the ice cream off your cone while sitting on a bench on the river - you’re at a public school at 6pm with every kid that ever attended that school (or at least that’s what it felt like) and every one there wants one thing: free ice cream.
Free ice cream. Of all the things to get a community together, it was the ice cream that did it.
It’s not for the parents you say - and you’re right - because this is what a face looks like happily eating lemon sherbet.
It’s all about the happy face.
This photo of her is where the high ended though as it was a very long day and then we had just one more boost thanks to the sugar and then it was pretty much over.
But not until we got to the book sale so we could spend money on some books and crap we really didn’t need. (see? there’s no such thing as FREE ICE CREAM) It’s a loss leader to get you and your offspring in the door and then and only then do you realize there’s a book sale.
Totally optional of course.
Our problem was that we did ice cream first, because: it’s free ice cream! and I am sure every parent had the same idea because by the time got to the book sale she was already coming down from her sugar high.
The book sale was wall to wall book buyers, so obviously the ice cream and book thing was working: they had books for all ages and interests and she had no problem picking a book. She settled on this one:
The book was the easy part. It has some stuff about tooth fairies in it and considering we found out about her first loose tooth yesterday this book about tooth fairies was an easy sell.
But, I also let her pick out a toy. And of course, she’s getting overwhelmed by choice and getting tired by this point so she picks the worst toy possible:
A freaking pointing stick! I let her walk around with it for a bit until I realized she was pointing and sticking things that should not be pointed and stuck at - so somehow, somehow I managed to get her to swap the stick out for a unicorn pen:
It’s still not ideal, and it was way way overpriced but I saved somebody in the household a trip to the emergency room tonight by not coming home with a finger pointer. No good can come from a finger pointer.
And the pen has unicorns. Unicorns are good - safe even. And they sparkle if you shake the pen and and and she likes to draw with pens and have glitter around at all time.
It’s my opinion the pen was a better choice.
The book, though - that was the choice. She was reading it in the car on the way home you guys! She could not wait to read it!
Any outing that ends with a belly full of lemon sherbet (with sprinkles!) and reading books in the car on the way home is a winning combination.
Of course, I get extra points for not coming home with a pointing stick.
We’ll stick to books and glitter and unicorns here.