Yesterday, we came outside just as Tyler's friend Creed was opening some awesome new sidewalk chalk. Of course Ty ran over to investigate. They started coloring happily. When I asked Tyler to come color on the side walk (instead of up on Creed's porch because chalk gets tracked into their house) he got mad and threw the chalk and it broke.
Tragedy.
We went inside and after Ty had calmed down a bit, we talked about what he needed to do to make it up to Creed that he broke his new sidewalk chalk. We decided to take some money out of Tyler's piggy bank and go buy Creed a new piece of chalk.
Keep in mind three things:
1. This was not ordinary side walk chalk. It was in cool shapes and the one that broke was the yellow one... which is Creed's absolute favorite color.
2. If Ty had broken it by accident, I would have felt bad but I wouldn't have made him buy him a new one. Those things just happen sometimes. But since he threw it in a momentary fit of rage.... I felt he needed to take responsibility for his actions.
3. I know Creed's parents didn't expect him to replace the chalk, and that Creed would soon forget about it, but there was more than one lesson that Ty could gain from this. . . Even though I felt really bad watching him take the money out of his little bank...
It was getting close to bed time but I figured we had to execute our plan while it was still fresh in his mind. So I loaded both kids up in the car and made our way over to Target, with Ty clutching is baggie of money. After looking for over a half hour we couldn't find the blasted chalk. We found plenty of regular side walk chalk but not the same kind that Tyler destroyed.
Finally we found an employee and she directed us to the same isle we had been looking at. Oh, and did I mention that both of my kids wanted to sit in the front of the cart?
That was splendid.
After a bit more looking, I gave up. I loaded the kids back up in the car and decided to try the Walmart down the street. By this then it was bed time, but I figured we were already out and bed time was already going to be late.
As we pulled up in the Walmart parking lot, Ty started wailing in despair. . .
He had left his baggie of money in the shopping cart at Target.
We turned around and went all the way back to Target. I then unloaded the kids again and we searched all of the carts in the area where we returned ours.
No luck.
We went to Customer service to see if it had been turned in.
No luck.
While we were there I asked the Customer Service girl if she knew where we could find the side walk chalk. She directed us to the toy section. We had looked there before, but I thought we'd give it another thorough look, but we didn't find it.
Finally, I gave up on Tyler's money and the chalk and we all loaded back up in the car.
And..... then Tyler found his money tucked on the side of his car seat.
Of course!
We went straight home after that...
Did I mention that Jax got stung by a bee right before this began?
3 comments:
Sounds like the longest evening ever. It was certainly a good effort though. Maybe he'll remember and you can give it another go after asking Creed's mom where she got the cool chalk.
Man, you are one determined mother. Way to go! Most days I don't have the patience to deal with problems like this. Sorry it ended up being such an event.
aren't things like this so much more entertaining to read when it's not you :) So glad I'm not the only one
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