Honesty

Christmas morning...Santa's visited and left toys for a good little girl under the tree...wake up! Let's see what Santa's brought!

Yes, we had to wake Yammy up to open presents. Horrible parents, I know. Mommy had to work at 9:30, so we had to schedule things properly...lol

So, Miss Yammy wakes up and comes downstairs. Now, let me preface this by saying, Daddy was very creative and decorated the hallway with all of our old stockings, hanging by the stairs. They were just tacked up there for decoration, but we have a plethora of old stockings; both of ours from when we were kids, ones we got when we were first married, Yammy's first Christmas stocking, a stocking my mom made for my cat when I was living on my own. Very cute. So, fast forward to Christmas morning, Yammy turning the corner to come down the hall, tapping the first stocking and exclaiming "This one's empty!"

"Yes sweetie, Santa's put yours under the tree" .....jeesh, kids!

So Yammy asked for a DS a week before Christmas because she saw it in the Toys R Us catalog. Well, Santa can work miracles, but pulling an extra $100+ for a gift out of an already stretched bank account the week before Christmas? I think not. So, Mommy tactfully explained, "You're not old enough for a DS."

The Monday before Christmas, Daddy comes home with a prize he's won from a random draw at work: a Nintendo DSi!!! Well, turns out Santa can work miracles! I'm in shock, Daddy's in shock....there's gonna be a DS under that tree after all!!

Ok, so back to Christmas morning.....Santa left a Joke house for Yammy (to match the Batcave he left her last year...how thoughtful!!) and a Barbie styling head...just like she asked him for at the mall visit!! That Santa's all-right! Now to presents from Mommy and Daddy. Littlest Pet Shop, Zhu Zhu pets, My Little Pony. Yea, we're pretty awesome (lol) ....and then......hold your breath....here it comes.......the DSi.......and she rips open the paper......oh my gosh!!!.......aren't you excited?? ........

"I didn't want this!"

Um, excuse me? What? Did this child just say she didn't want the thing she asked for a week ago? Seriously?

Ok....in her defense (and it's a cheap defense at that), the packaging for the DSi is "plain" ...and to a five-year-old looking for bells and whistles, the sleek white packaging doesn't really scream "I'm so exciting and so much fun."

So, wait til she sees the games! Oh yes, because this free game came with a Mario & Luigi game, but I know my kid, and she's no Mario fan (yet.) So Mommy ran to the used-games store and got her a Bratz Ponyz game and a Hello Kitty game...this will make everything better.

She opened the first game, the Mario one, of course. "I don't even like Mario" ...just gets better by the minute, doesn't it?

When she opened the other games, she was warming up to the idea of the DSi a bit more. She brought it to Nana's and proceeded to play her new games there, and has been playing it almost nonstop (Facebook? What's a Facebook? Can I play my DS?) for the last few days.

But it's that initial reaction...."I didn't want this" and her exclamation the night before opening her gift from Auntie N and Uncle R "I don't want this" that's really getting to me. (The gift from N and R was a very cool pop-up book of the X-Men. Upon closer look and explanation, she really does think it's cool now.)

Do I teach her to lie? No, that's not right at all. Tell her that statements like "I don't want this" are unacceptable and she should be repressing her feelings? Yes, the lesson of "if you don't have anything to say, don't say anything at all" would apply here, but she's been so extremely shy in the past, so the fact that she's expressing something is refreshing, even if it is socially awkward.

Oh the joys of parenthood, may you never cease to confuse me.