“If you and Daddy were glued together, you’d have two mouths, four hands, and four legs,” Little Bear suddenly declared before breakfast this morning.
“Hmm,” I replied, “how many noses would we have?”
“Two!” came the reply.
“How many ears?” I asked.
“Four!” she answered.
“How many fingers?” I challenged.
She counted aloud as if visualizing each finger, before proudly declaring “Twenty! And you’d have twenty toes too, because you have the same number of fingers and toes!”
“And there you have it,” I told my husband. “Math in action. How can I top that?”
… We left the textbooks on the shelf this morning and headed to the mall. Daddy Bear needed a necktie for an afternoon interview, and I figured I could introduce Little Bear to the world of bargain shopping. The word “bargain” exited the plan when the first tie I picked up had a $49.95 price tag and the second a $79.95 sticker.
“What do you think, Mommy?” Little Bear asked curiously.
“I think we’re in the wrong store,” I responded, taking her by the hand (less she accidentally break anything in Inflated Prices, Inc.) and heading for the one of the cheaper establishments.
We ultimately found a perfectly functional tie (Do ties actually have a function?) for $20 — still not a bargain in my book, but at least within the realm of reason. We also browsed through the children’s department in a futile effort to find plain denim shorts. Little Bear discovered a rack of fancy spring/summer infant dresses and noted that we could get Baby Bear TWO new dresses for less than Daddy’s one tie cost.
“True,” I said, “but what do we need to buy today?”
“A necktie for Daddy,” she answered.
“Do you think Baby Bear needs any more dresses?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said.
Bargain shopping rule no. 1: If you don’t need it, it’s not a bargain no matter how cheap it may be.
We were about to continue our search for plain denim shorts at another store when I looked at the clock and realized it was almost time to pick Daddy up from school. I’d promised the girls some play time, and making good on that promise trumped finding shorts.
Bargain shopping rule no. 2: If you can’t find what you want at a price you’re willing to pay today, you can always try again another day. Or try eBay. Or simply do without.
Little Bear finally managed to scale one of the play structures she’s been trying to scale independently for the past year:
"I did it!"
Balancing just like the big kids ...
Meantime, Baby Bear decided it was nap time:
"Wake me when you're ready to go home."
We used our time in the car to practice our address and phone number. At some point, I came up with the cheesy idea of putting the phone number to music and singing a silly little ditty that went something like this:
What’s your telephone nu-um-ber?
What’s your telephone nu-um-ber?
What’s your telephone nu-um-ber?
555-1234
555-1234
555-1234
555-1234
That’s my telephone number!
Within two minutes, Little Bear went from complaining that the telephone number was “too hard to remember” to singing it right along with me. She also succeeded in recalling it half a dozen times over the course of the afternoon and evening, so it actually seems to have stuck.
This afternoon, we reviewed our letter P verse and read the accompanying story in My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God’s Word in Little Hearts
Working on ABCMouse.com
I wasn’t sure how much time we’d need to kill, so I took the computer along. Little Bear did an ABCMouse.com lesson, while I stood guard between Baby Bear and a display rack full of Webkinz. (Bargain shopping rule no. 3: Stuffed animals are not a bargain at ANY price.) We also spent about half an hour browsing children’s books and managed to come home with only two.
Oops!
Despite temperatures still in the low 90s (after 6 p.m.), the girls enjoyed some outside playtime once we got home. Baby Bear gravitated to the dirt, of course, but she was playing oh-so-happily with her back toward me, and I *thought* she was simply digging in the dirt. Um, no. When I walked over to see exactly what she was doing, I found her quite happily filling dump truck after dump truck with dirt, then delightedly pouring each load all over herself. … Applied physics notwithstanding, we cut play time a bit shorter than planned and bumped bath time up an hour.
After early showers, the girls joined me in the kitchen for our final activity of the day: making Pink Lemonade Pie for Daddy’s birthday tomorrow. This was supposed to have been a project for Little Bear, but Baby Bear really wanted to get in on the action:
Little chefs
Little Bear did a fantastic job of listening and following directions, so I decided that tonight was the perfect time to introduce her to the time-honored tradition of licking the beater:
Good stuff!
While I cleaned the kitchen, Little Bear made a birthday card for Daddy and wrote most of “I love you” herself. Finally, we read a couple more chapters in our Bobbsey Twins read-aloud, followed by Little Miss Princess
So, did Little Bear require a second bath after licking the beater? {{{Hugs to all!}}}
Ha! She probably could have used one, but we made do with a washcloth. Love you guys!