Day 5

“Mom can I have this?”   I glanced back and Kayla my oldest was holding a pamphlet sized magazine titled 150 Cupcake Ideas.

“Uh, no, of course not,” I said.

“But, I want it.”

Now I have heard this many times in the checkout line of the grocery store, but it is usually in reference to some gummy high fructose corn syrup goodness.  So, I was a little caught off guard when she asked me for a magazine that, based on the cover, was about making cupcakes that look like Hello Kitty.  Not that I can’t relate,  I have many times been lured by the siren song of People Magazine or Real Simple.  And, every once in a great while…when there is no one else in line; I’ll actually flip through one with the headline, “Woman Delivers Own Baby While Skydiving”.

Anyway, there was a bit of a tense exchange, mainly with me shaking my head and her pleading until finally I promised her we would come home and look up cupcakes online.  This was a situation in which neither of us was a winner.  She wasn’t getting the magazine and I was going to have to figure out where to get a cupcake pan without buying it.

It won’t surprise most parents that by the time we got home she had forgotten about the whole “Cupcake Standoff” and that was the end of it.

So looking back, I was surprised at her insistence, primarily because even prior to five days ago, I wouldn’t have bought her that magazine and I am pretty sure she knows that.   Have I created a new category of “forbidden fruit” to add to the things they already are denied like Coco Puffs and SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons?

I suppose if this year does cause them long term psychological damage, they can always grow up and start their own blogs about how their mother ruined their childhood.