Dangers of Only 3 days of Kindergarten

Here we are back to a day off school for Kerrigan.  She goes three days (T, W and Th) and has Mondays and Fridays off.  She is so bored on these days.  Especially since I am trying to catch up on my laundry and housework and can’t “play”.  So once again, out come the American Girl and Aldi’s toy catalogs.  She runs off to find a pen so she can mark a “K” by nearly everything in the books.  This takes about 15 minutes.  Then she comes bearing the stack of four catalogs and informs me, “This one is for my birthday list, this one is for my birthday list, this one is for Christmas and this one is for Christmas, too! Look at them so you can see all the things I am going to get!”

I look them over while eating breakfast.  All the while, she is pouring over them with me saying such phrases as, “I am getting this doll because I like her wallet.”  “I am getting this stuff because she is going to Paris.” And on and on.  I flip over the last page and toss the fourth catalog on the “looked through” stack.  She is so matter-of-fact about getting all this stuff, I start to get scared and nervous.  I can already visualize Christmas morning with the disappointed face, as it crumples and the waterfall of tears begin.  I figure it’s better to brace her for the worst now and get it into her head that she is NOT getting all this stuff. 

I tell her, “You know, don’t you, that you will only be getting a few things for Christmas?”  “But Mommy, what if you get a hundred dollars and fifty-four cents?”  Her eyes are full of sparkles at the thought!  I make the sparkles vanish momentarily with my next statement, “That would only be enough money to buy ONE American Girl doll.” 

She thinks for a minute, then shrugs her shoulder and says, “But I have to have millions.  Otherwise my room wouldn’t look very,” she pauses as she searches for the right word.  “Americy…and Girly!”  And that is that.  End of discussion as far as she is concerned.  But I am not finished.  I want this to be VERY clear. 

So we go through it all over again.  You only get a few things.  If you got everything you wanted, it would cost way, way, WAY more than all the money that we spend on Christmas for EVERYONE that we buy presents for.  And the waterfall begins.  Tears, tears and more tears pour out of those beautiful, dark, semi-sweet chocolate eyes.  Better to have them now than later.  I pull her into my lap and try my best to console her, all the while wishing that Kindergarten was five days a week instead of three.