A Story of the Youngest Child

Let me tell you the story about how Sylvi came to have this raincoat.

I was so proud of myself in the days leading up to her birthday because I was keeping things so simple and not going overboard. For presents I bought her a box of crayons, a coloring book and a little blackboard with chalk and a magnetic wooden alphabet. So sweet! And I had a gift leftover from Christmas which was some containers of playdoh. All very inexpensive, simple gifts. She wanted a strawberry cake so I got strawberries, but then we kept eating the strawberries before we ever made the cake, so I kept having to get more. And once when we were getting strawberries we also had to get a big 3 birthday balloon and some other balloons because we just love balloons! And then I thought if I got her a cute new dress for her birthday she’d have something nice for Easter and all summer since she’s growing out of a lot of her nicer dresses. They had such cute dresses at Target!! Lovely and simple, just so sweet. Of course, she wanted nothing to do with any of the ones I showed her. What SHE found was a synthetic material floofy skirted dress with a cotton jersey top that had a big Minnie Mouse face on the front. 😂 She loves Minnie Mouse! I really don’t so much! I tried to coax her into something else, one sweet little cotton floral or another but nope. And of course, because I had her entire cheering section of seven sisters and cousins with me, I caved.

A few hours later we were driving the cousin cheer section of the Sylvi Fan Club home and The Queen herself was falling asleep. Anything to avoid the dreaded five o’clock nap!— I had Martin drop Sylvi and me off at a shopping center and told him to pick us up at the grocery store on the far side of the parking lot and I’d grab a pre-baked chicken and some fruit for our dinner since it had been a crazy hectic day and everyone was starving. So I went into TJ Maxx just to kill some time and I realized Sylvi was wearing just a tshirt and skirt. It was like 40 degrees outside! When we’d left she hadn’t had a jacket but the car was warm and we hadn’t planned to stop. So instead of just killing time, now I was looking for a sweater or something so I wouldn’t be a terrible mother walking with my practically naked toddler across this huge gaping parking lot on a frigid, windy February day.

Well. No sweaters. No winter stuff at all! But I found one little jacket thing that was like $7 and tried to convince her she wanted it. No dice. What SHE had laid her royal eyes upon was more like a SET. It was a shirt and leggings *and* a cute pink raincoat! Ugh, ok, it’s true that her current raincoat has been handed down through four sisters and it wouldn’t hurt for her to have a new one. But the set was $25! And this was the second time today she was begging for something she didn’t need in a store and I was totally walking up to the register with it in my arms because I still had the problem of having to get across the parking lot and not look like a negligent mother, and she was absolutely asking me to buy her jelly beans at the cash register, but—NOW IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO BE PROUD OF ME—I said no to the jelly beans.

She didn’t really care about the jelly beans. She did care about the coat. She was SO EXCITED about the coat. She said, “Daddy will think I look so pretty in this raincoat!” And she was so, so happy to wear it then, and again today on this very rainy day, was so happy to wear it through the puddles and raindrops. It made her happy.

So you see, I guess money CAN buy happiness. Especially if you are 3! And if you’re more like 39 it can buy your way out of dirty looks from better, more prepared parents and shoppers. And it can buy you a big heap of concern over how much you are spoiling your youngest baby as you fork over more and more of it as her birthday draws near. Who am I? This was not my parenting plan. My goodness. Well, I may not be prepared to mother royalty like Sylvi, but at least we are now prepared for all the biggest puddles. That is some consolation.