Can’t Hide From Calfgrit7

Cowgrit found a great Christmas gift for Calfgrit4: a set of eight PlayMobil rescue vehicles. We knew he’d love it, and it would be a great gift from Santa Clause because we can open the package and have all the vehicles spread out over the floor. Rather than one present, he’d see it as a bunch of stuff. We bought the set and have stored it in the trunk of my car for about two weeks.

Last night, after Cowgrit came back home from the grocery store, Calfgrit7 went outside to “help” her. He’s never shown any interest in helping bring in groceries before, and he just slipped out the door without saying anything to me (inside) or to Cowgrit (outside).

He essentially sneaked up on Cowgrit at the back of the car, where she was getting the groceries out of the trunk. Before she even realized he was standing there, he saw the big PlayMobil box in the trunk. Kids have a way of seeing the one thing you don’t want them to see — they can see through fog, blinding snow, and thin sheets of lead to see a hidden toy, but they can’t find their socks on the floor six inches behind them.

“Wow, what’s that?” he exclaimed.

Cowgrit sighed and went ahead and told him it was a present. She had to explain it was for Calfgrit4, and that upset CG7 — CG4 had just gotten a bunch of presents for his birthday.

When we were alone for a minute, Cowgrit told me what had happened. “Damn,” we both said. Although we can still give the present to CG4 for Christmas, it’ll have to be from us instead of Santa Claus. That was a perfect gift for Santa to leave, but now we have to find something else for that purpose.

It’s amazing how it can take a lot of looking to find a perfect present like that, and a lot of clever consideration to hide it, but it only takes a child two seconds to accidentally spot it and ruin the surprise.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com