Check This List

Like any good anal-retentive Virgo mom who spends the month of November filling virtual shopping carts across the www with the plan to pull the trigger on Cyber Monday, I have been asking Zoey what she wants for Christmas for months now. Except, of course, I ask all "yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" coy. And for months now Zoey has been her own kind of coy, replying mostly with "I forget," or sometimes, "You know, that thing?" When I press for more information because someone must have forgotten to pay the domain registration on youknowthatthing.com, she tells me not to worry, that Santa will know what she's talking about. At which point I slink back to Amazon and buy more packs of Rainbow Looms feeling like a total dick.

We all know that after Thankgiving there is Black Friday, then Cyber Monday, and what follows is Smug Tuesday, when you have hit all those purchase buttons and are done with your Christmas shopping. What I did not know is that Zoey also celebrates Sucker Wednesday, otherwise known as Wait-Til-Then-To-Do-Her-Christmas-List Wednesday, although that phrase is not quite as marketable. It has not gone unnoticed that this sudden zeal fell on the same day as the arrival of one American Girl catalog in the mail. Behold the scroll of her Christmas list, spoons for scale:

If I may, let me type out the list verbatim (spelling is not her strong suit):
Braded hedband
pollr bar pagamas + charm
Sage's sliprs for girls and dolls
fancy erings for dolls
Sage's horse and helmint
The American Gril doll Makena and her stuff!
My little pony kute bobl hed that is Rainbow Dash!
Phone!
Makena's pet!

You can practically feel the momentum of gimme gimme growing with the addition of exclamation points. And then it quickly snowballs:

I want to see Santa!
Love all araownd the wold!
Peece all araownd the wold!
Happynis all araownd the wold!
10 packs of Rainbow Loom
I wish that plastic cood desolv!
I wish that I had reelly kute cklos!

I mean, come the fuck on. She wants plastic to dissolve for Christmas? SO DO I. I want happiness all around the world, peace and love and really cute clothes. I want to see Santa! So I did it. I bought the stupid American Girl doll braided headband and polar bear pajamas, fancy earrings for her doll, Saige's slippers and the My Little Pony cute bobblehead that is Rainbow Dash. Because sometimes peace is found in really cute clothes (a blue Roxy sweatshirt and boots in this case) and it is all I can do to give her love and happiness all around her world until the inevitable one day when she finds out that Santa is not real and those 10 packs of Rainbow Looms are made of plastic that is never, ever going to dissolve.

So yes, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Smug Tuesday, and every day I love her as if there were no tomorrow.

Although, p.s.--I did not buy her Saige's horse and helmet or the American Girl doll Makena or a phone, because I am not totally crazy.
p.p.s. Right? I was right not to get her Saige's horse?

xo,
S