If Only They Had Been Two For the Price of One

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had as lovely a Christmas as we did here at the Dadekian household.  I have a few stories for you, but I thought I'd start out with the one where Lana cried first thing, upon seeing the presents Christmas morning, and it was totally my fault.  Well, Andy's too.  Actually, I blame him more.  Here's why.  

For a month and a half now all Sonya had been asking for was a princess scooter.  It's the ONLY thing she wanted for Christmas.  Every time we saw Santa at the mall or when he called on the phone, that was it.  A princess scooter.  So what did Lana want?  Of course the same thing.  Only Lana really hasn't ridden a scooter much, and I'm not sure if she knew what she was asking for.  Still, we should have known better.  

Andy and I went shopping for the girls one night a couple weeks ago to the only toy store ever invented, Toys R Us.  Why is that the only toy store around, by the way?  They really have a monopoly on the toy business, and it's a bit annoying because some of the employees there are not the nicest people in the world.  Since it is the only place to go for the biggest selection of toys, off we went.  It was a Saturday night and it was a madhouse.  Fun times!  We couldn't even find a cart when we first got there.  More fun times!  Good thing we were going to a party and drinking after that.  We had no idea what to get anyone, other than the scooter, so we went there first.  There were no princess ones, but there was a purple and pink one which I was pretty sure Sonya would be okay with.  It came with a helmet and pads as well.  We put one in the cart and I went to get another one, when Andy stopped me.  

"We don't need two," he said.

"But Lana said this is what she wanted too," I protested.

"They can share it," was the response I got.  

Oh sure that's fine for the guy at work all day not dealing with two sisters fighting over who gets to ride the scooter next.  I thought about arguing more, but dropped it, because the fact is Lana is 2 1/2 and I wasn't even sure this was something that would hold her interest past Christmas morning.  She was only asking for it, because her sister was, and I knew that since we were on a budget this year, if we got two then there would be nothing else we could get them.  Still, I had a baaaad feeling.

The next few days I heard more from Sonya about the princess scooter, and whenever Lana was around she would add in her, "me too", about wanting a scooter.  I tried my best to hint at the fact that maybe Santa would bring one for them to share, but I don't think either of them heard me.  

On Christmas Eve Andy put the scooter together and I made sure it came with a tag that said to Sonya AND Lana from Santa.  Christmas morning the girls were up around 7am, which was pretty normal wake up time for them, so that was good.  They were naturally over excited to run to the living room and see what Santa had left for them.   Sonya and Lana sat in our bed and waited patiently for Andy to go to the living room and "check" to see if Santa had come.  Once he let us know it was okay to come out, they ran screaming from our room in complete craziness.  I followed behind with Georgia who had no idea why I had woken her up from her sound sleep.  

Then we got to the living room.   (Insert record scratch here.)  Sonya squealed when she saw the scooter and jumped on, and Lana stopped and looked around searching for hers.  Meanwhile I'm yelling,

"Read the tag Sonya! It's for both of you! Read the tag!"

Sonya read it out loud but it was too late.  Lana burst into tears and wailed,

"I wanted a scooooterrrr!"

I tried to tell her that one was for them to share and Sonya tried as well, but she only cried harder and said,

"I wanted my own!"  Then she walked back to our bedroom crying the whole time, and my heart broke into about a thousand pieces.  I felt terrible and was sure I had ruined Christmas for my middle child forever.  She didn't get the one thing she asked for.  Well, she did, but it wasn't her own.  

I followed her back to the bedroom and tried calming her down.  I explained to her that Santa thought it would be best if she and Sonya shared the scooter so they could get other presents too.  That didn't matter to her.  Then I told her if she came back out to the living room, she could have her turn on the scooter too.  Hearing this, she stopped crying and followed me back out to the living room.  She perked up and took her turn riding the scooter around the island in the kitchen.  When she was done she said,

"Here, sis, your turn!"

Well, were at least helping them with sharing.  She was fine the rest of the day.  We opened the rest of the presents and she didn't seem to be upset about the scooter anymore.  She and Sonya even shared the scooter very nicely.  Well for now.  I'm smart enough to know that won't last forever.  That is why I took my friend, Stacy's, Cars scooter off her hands.  This way when the fighting really starts, I can pull that out as at least another one to use.  Although I'm sure the new purple and pink one will still be the more coveted.  

My hope is that she's young enough that she won't remember.  However, it will be stuck in MY memory for the rest of my life.  Not to mention that we have it all on video.   The Christmas I made my daughter cry.   I can tell you that I won't be doing that again.  Next time they both ask for the same thing, they're both getting it or nobody's getting it.  I mean I know in the grand scheme of things, this won't matter to her, but if someday she's in therapy and the, "Christmas she didn't get a scooter", gets brought up, I can place most of the blame on Andy for this on.  After all, I am the one who tried to get for her  in the first place.