I’ve written a PSA before, but for those not catching it, PSA stands for Parrish Service Announcement, which can be defined as advice free to you that came at a price to me. (Clearing throat) I’ve got another for you.
My oldest daughter’s feet have grown. Like, grown grown. The size of my feet minus a half. And so, she believes now that my closet is a mini Shoe Station. A Shoe Station wherein she helps herself and doesn’t pay a dime. She’s got a very “what’s mine is yours” attitude about them which is reason #28,432 for my insanity.
A bit about my closet: it’s not huge. Since the floor space isn’t large, I store summer shoes on high shelves above when it’s winter shoe weather and then trade them out when the seasons shift. Which basically means that those winter shoes sit on the top shelf about 10.5 months out of the year because we live in SOUTH Georgia and you can’t spell South without H-O-T. Those higher shelves also contain other infrequently used things: handbags, luggage, hot hair rollers (HELLO 1998!), a pair of Timberlands (HELLO 1988! What? I’m nostalgic.), and a white paper sack which is a quaint home to our Elf on the Shelf. It’s its Air BNB. And it’s a cheap rental with excellent accommodations including bedding as soft as tissue paper! It’s literally an Elf on the Shelf.
So, oldest daughter decided unbeknownst to me that she wanted to try on a pair of my booties to go with her “outfit.” (Listen, I know, I know. I’m raising a mini-me. It’s ok…we’ll all be ok.) She blitzkriegs my closet and launches one of my “spring time” shoes up on the top shelf to dislodge this pair of shoes she thinks she can wear. Like a grenade with its pin removed, the shoe send shrapnel falling down everywhere. A few shoes, a hot roller, and a white bag.
That girl of mine is curious which is a nice word for nosy here. (Told ya she was a mini-me. My earliest memories of childhood included the words, “Don’t meddle.” But I’m a researcher. I should have gone into the FBI. Anyhoo…) She picks up our Elf on the Shelf’s home away from home — because we all know its home is the North Pole, duh! — and peers inside. Its tissue paper shroud is removed and our daughter’s jaw hits the floor. Running to the nearest adult–my husband– she shrieks,
“WHAT IS BUDDY* DOING IN MAMA’S CLOSET IN A BAG?”
*Buddy is the name of our elf because my kids are creative name assignees. You know, from the movie ELF?
Being the wonderful father he is, he encouraged her by saying,
“Go ask your mother.”
Y’all. I can’t.
But then also very wisely said, “Don’t tell your siblings.”
So, this big footed child of mine comes stomping into the kitchen (with MY shoes on) and is demanding to know what Buddy is doing in my closet. And I know what you are thinking, “if her feet are big enough to wear your shoes, ain’t that child too old to be believin’ in things like elves and tooth fairies?” And the logical answer is probably so, but this girl has quite an imagination and she’s also smart enough to know to play along, or at least reap the benefits from these flying fictitious characters.
I proceed to scold her for going through my closet and also tell her that’s what she gets for snooping…because she needs to know when you go digging where you shouldn’t, you might come up with a surprise you weren’t ready for–and that goes for you adults too. Don’t meddle.
My dear husband walks in at this time giggling like a school girl which leads me to giggle which leads our girl to start crying. Her world got a little bit crushed and I did hate it, but it was just too funny for me to stop chuckling. I mean, she’s smart. Really smart. Surely she didn’t believe that a felt covered, plastic faced, side-eye painted on, no hand or feet having, cotton stuffed, glorified dog chew toy ACTUALLY moved himself to and fro the North Pole and scaled our chandeliers and wrote silly notes and played with Barbies every year at Christmas. Surely. I mean, come on. You actually believed that Buddy broke his leg this past Christmas and THAT’S why he didn’t move for a few days and it wasn’t just that your mama forgot???
Bless it all to pieces, mostly her heart. And then mine too. My baby is growing up. And while that hurts my feelings, I will say I’m sort of happy to have the stress taken solely off of me to move that elf this Christmas. She has now officially been recruited my helper on this.
As we are trying to move past this and I’m consoling her and telling her not to tell her siblings (though I have an itching suspicion that my middle girl child has had this figured out since she was 8 months old–she’s a sprite, I tell ya)– ok, not so much telling but threatening her– she looks up at me with her big beautiful tear dripping eyes and says,
“Well at least Santa is still real. There’s no way you and Daddy could pull that off.”
Okay, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus.
PSA #2: Hide yo’ children, hide yo’ wives, hide yo’ ELF ON THE SHELF.
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