It’s still Cinco’s birthday.  She is still looking for her purple “Let It Go” cake. Her birthday month cumulated in a trip to Target. Sort of.

It started with the fact that both Mac and X-Man take swimming lessons. Mac is a good swimmer who has slowly developed past “thrashing with style” to competing in his first swim meet. X-Man is still in the thrashing mode. Style is yet to develop, although the child is fearless in the water. His swim instructor tends to put not one, not two but three separate flotation devices on him. She’s a prudent gal…….

Cinco is nothing if not competitive. She “beat” the father figure in air hockey the other day. Ten to one. I know because she kept a running score announcement to share with the entire crowd. Part of 

Cinco’s competitive score keeping is seen is her insistence that anything X-Man does…..she gets to do. So, it didn’t surprise me much when she appeared in front of me in her swimming suit. Although I admit to being impressed that she was able to get it on over her clothing. She walked over to me and announced “I go swimming lessons.” Being the mom I am, I smiled and said “ah good for you.” I figured this was all occurring in the same world that had her Dalmatian puppy doubling as her baby. It wasn’t until she climbed into the closet to retrieve her shoes and coat that I realized she actually intended to go to swimming lessons. This posed a problem.

First of all, it was seven pm. And I was heading out the door to take Baba to soccer. Second of all, Cinco wasn’t actually enrolled in swimming lessons. Third of all, Cinco doesn’t handle disappointment well. Well actually, she’s an expert at it. From the rolling out of the bottom lip, to the huge tears that slip down her cheeks and the shudders that come from struggling to contain sobs, she gets both the father figure and me, fairly easily.

Eventually she accepted a shopping trip to Target in lieu of swimming lessons. Of course, there was a brownie involved as well. While Cinco still would wistfully talk about swimming lessons, she didn’t let it dampen her enthusiasm much. She babbled along, talking about everything and anything. That included her belting out “Happy Birthday”, complete with blowing out nonexistent candles. And older gentleman commented to me “Wow, she really doesn’t stop does she?”

No, no she does not.

We continued on to another store, whose halls were very much decked for the upcoming Christmas season. This very much excited Cinco. “Christmas. Christmas everywhere!!!!” As we browsed the aisles, Cinco announced loudly “LOOK! IT’S MY HORSE!!!!!” Indeed, it was a beautiful wooden rocking horse. Cinco continued “Go, go mama! Go to my horse!” I tried to break it to her “I’m pretty sure that’s not your horse. That’s the store’s horse.”

And with that, Cinco turned cocked her head to one side and looked at me with patience and understanding “I think Daddy wants to get me the horse.”

That’s a new one folks.

And now I have to decide whether to tell the father figure this story……and end up with an absurdly expensive horse. Which is rather redundant I suppose.