How many missing socks do you think there are in the world? If someone was to gather up all of the missing socks scattered in dryers, stores, closets, forests, and lakes around the earth, how many would there be? Millions, I would guess.
I can not keep socks on Cub. Not for the life of me. I am constantly having nice strangers tell me that my child is missing a sock. Frankly, I have given up on trying to keep socks on him, and if I do put socks on him, they rarely match.
So today, I took my boys to Target. I did not have anything that I was specifically shopping for, more like I was just perusing Target and checking out boots for you to buy (I am your personal shopper). My boys were riding in one of those ridiculously huge shopping carts that are difficult to push. Half way through our shopping trip, I realized that Cub was missing a sock. T Bear started to panic, he wanted to go find the missing sock. We had just gotten in the elevator to go the next level in Target, and I did not want to go back to look for a sock. I told T Bear no, Cub was ok with just one sock on.
We finished our shopping, and as we left the check-out stand, I noticed that Cub's second sock was now missing. This pushed T Bear over the edge. He insisted that we had to go back and search for Cub's socks. I said no. T Bear continued to LOUDLY yell and cry about finding Cub's socks all the way through the parking lot to our car. I tried to ignore him.
When we got to the car, I realized that T Bear was not giving up on finding the missing socks. So this is what I told him,
"T Bear, it is ok. I want to buy Cub so new socks anyway."
"No Mommy. He NEEDS his socks." (more crying)
"T Bear, we are so blessed because we have enough money to go buy new socks for Cub. Some people don't have enough money to buy new socks for their babies. Maybe there will be a baby riding through Target today and he will find Cub's socks. The baby will be so happy that he found Cub's socks because his mommy didn't have enough money to buy some for him."
The crying stopped. T Bear compliantly climbed in the car and started talking about a baby finding Cub's socks and being so happy about it.
Is that terrible? I made us sound like rich snobs living in a third world country. I just went with it and it worked. I don't know what that will do to mess him up psychologically. Hopefully it all works out.
Once again, I am striving hard to win that "Mother-of-the-Year" award. Yeah right.
With love & two socks on my feet,
-Miss T
P.S. Do you remember our sock drawer growing up? I bet there were a lot of lonely and missing socks in there.
P.P.S. I also saw Lily Jang from Q13 Fox morning news at Target. I think she is adorable. I totally got start-struck by seeing a local celebrity.
I always find I have a much harder time keeping socks on my GIANT babies as oppose to my more normal sized little ones. A is running into the same problem as Baby Cub.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I think you are a genius of telling T Bear that someone else can use Baby Cub's socks. Brilliant :) !!
Ha! I don't think T Bear will be messed up psychologically...hopefully this concept will help him feel better about other things that might go missing in his life one day...I'm personally thinking of many jackets that I hope someone picked and used. Not quite the same as socks...but I like the concept!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I checked out Lily Jang--she is adorable! So cool that you saw her. I love seeing celebrity status people.
Love this story! I can so see T Bear having that dilemma and I LOVE the way you solved it. Moms have to be creative and you sometimes you just have to swing with an idea you think will work for you particular sweet little child.
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