On Saturday we began the now annual pilgrimage to find pieces and parts of Sydney's Halloween costume. In prior years, she has been spinach and a bee, but this year she wants to be Buzz Lightyear, which challenged our costume making abilities a little bit. Fortunately we found others who had gone through this already online, and were able to print out what amounted to a recipe for costume making complete with ingredient list. The list found us making a trip to the nearest Michael's.
Often on shopping excursions I hand one or both children a "store toy", which is a toy that can be held or played with while we are in the store, but will be given back to the store upon our departure, relieving me of both the issues associated with boredom and also with constantly buying the children useless toys. So far, both children have been fine with this arrangement. So while in an aisle stacked with odd assorted toys we came across a plastic, and well formed, tortoise. Lauren pointed at this toy and even handed back the squishy ball she had previously been playing with. "Baby!" she said, which is her word for any stuffed animal which she will hold onto.
A little while later into the shopping excursion, Sydney informed me that she wanted to wear a mask with her Buzz Lightyear costume. This was not part of the ingredients list, but we settled on a green eye mask which actually fit her. We finished our shopping, which is when it became apparent that the tortoise was coming with us and was not a store toy, after all.
"Lauren," I said, "We have to give the turtle back, now."
"Baby!" she said, looking very serious, and hugging it tighter.
"Honey, we're not buying it. It has to go back."
"na na na na." She shook her head. Then she pointed at herself. "My!"
I glanced in the shopping cart. All the items there were intended to make Sydney a Buzz Lightyear costume, and there actually wasn't anything in there for Lauren. My Fairness Meter kicked in. It has slowly dawned on me, as Lauren gets older and more aware, that things must be equal for the kids, or at least as equal as they can get. And so the store toy became Lauren's baby.
"Okay," I said, "You can have it."
Later on, we went shopping for food. Sydney, taken with the mask, wore it inside the store. Lauren carried her plastic turtle. Yes, I went food shopping with one masked child and one turtle-carrying child. "Baby!" Lauren would respond to anyone who would ask. I'm aware that we make a spectacle. But I wouldn't change it, not for the world.
