Setting Expectations

While visiting my grandkids for the holiday weekend, I ran into my DIL's parents.  They had come by to drop off Easter baskets and visit.  We had dinner with them.  It's always fun to visit with someone who is as charmed with your grandkids as you are.

Grannie (not me, I'm Grandee) walked in with two plastic sand buckets, complete with digging shovels.  Each bucket had a book, and a few chocolates in the bottom.  But in pride of place was a placard with a bright yellow animal on it, about the size of a tiny hand.  For Zoey, a duck and for ZJ, a giraffe.

When the kids had eaten some of the chocolates, dug in the mulch with their shovels, and worn their grandmas to the ground, they finally found the other toy in the packaging and demanded it be opened.  Grannie shook her head and said, "This is for bath time.  When it gets wet, it GROWS!"  The kids were so excited.  They couldn't wait for bath time.

My son, who's an exceptionally good dad, takes care of bath time each night and his wife reads/rocks the kids to sleep.  Last night, because the house was full up on grandparents, he tried to short cut the bath and told the kids they'd have baths in the morning.  There was a full meltdown.  He had no idea that they had patiently waited for this 'surprise gift' all evening.

When he got it, he gamely ran the water and threw the babies into the tub.  We scrounged around until we found the toys and pulled them out of the packaging.  Into the tub went the yellow giraffe and the duck.  And the kids waited.  Nothing.

Finally, Grannie pulled the cardboard out of the trash and read the fine print... it takes up to 96 hours for these little sponges to 'grow'.  The disappointment was palpable.  Little fat lips quivered.  Finally, Daddy ran into the kitchen and got some plasticware and filled it with water and left the little things floating in water so they could drain the tub.

We put the kids to bed last night with promises of the grown sponge toys.  I got up this morning early and looked in the bathroom.  They haven't grown a fraction of an inch.  Not a bit of watery plumpness.

So, new rule:  if you buy a kid a toy with some kid of water effect, read the label before you present it to the darlings.  They have very short attention spans, and can be so easily disappointed.

--Sandee Wagner