"Momma, why do we have to sell Funny and Blankey?"
"Why is Mommy scared of the dark?"
These two questions have been haunting me and M all weekend. Here's why:
Over the weekend we took E to Stillwater for the OSU basketball and football games. While at the basketball game on Friday night, we could look down on the floor of the arena and see Pistol Pete. E absolutely loves Pistol Pete. Anytime we see him on TV, in a magazine, or on a shirt, E jumps up and yells "It's Pistol Pete!!"
Well we could see Pete down on the floor during the basketball game and E wanted to go to the floor to say "hi" to Pete. Her mother and I tried explaining we didn't have tickets for floor access.
"But why don't we have tickets on the floor?"
"Because they cost too much."
"But I want them."
"We would have to give up lots of things to be able to afford those tickets."
"What kinds of things?"
And here is where I went wrong for the first time this weekend. "We'd have to sell blankey and funny."
For the uneducated, it should be obvious what "blankey" is. "Funny" is this little cloth with satin finish on one side and teddy bear head on the other. We don't go anywhere for an overnight trip without blankey and funny. We don't nap in the afternoon without blankey and funny. We certainly don't go to bed at night without blankey and funny.
You'd have thought I was going to cut off one of her arms. "You can't sell funny and blankey."
Now, she was willing to consider selling them if we could get tickets to see Pete - or so I thought. Eventually I told her we weren't going to sell blankey and funny because no one wanted them. "I want them" was the immediate response.
Despite her unwillingness to sell blankey and funny, she still wanted to go see Pete. And right up to the time we left the game she continued to ask why we couldn't go see Pete. After we got back to the motel and got to bed, I thought the discussion about blankey and funny was passed and we could move on. Little did I know it would come up again.
On Saturday morning, I got up early to go set up our tailgate and get the food ready for the day. I was showered and dressed when E woke up and asked if she could go with me. I told her she needed to stay at the motel with Mommy.
"Why do I have to stay with Mommy?"
And here was my second big misstatement of the weekend - "She's afraid of the dark and you need to stay here to make her feel good."
"Why is Mommy afraid of the dark?"
Where do you go from here? Way too many times I discover that most 4-year-olds don't appreciate sarcasm or pick up on a joke well. And this weekend was certainly no exception.
While I had left the M and E at the motel to go set up the tailgate, M was stuck with a little girl who kept asking the same two questions non-stop - Why are you afraid of the dark? and Why does Daddy want to sell my blankey and funny?
Needless to say, by the time they got to the stadium, M was tired of those two questions and whatever follow-up questions her answers spawned and I got an earful from a very tired Mommy.
