Payback and a Purple Jump Rope

I spent most of today, Christmas Eve, running around to several stores looking for a particular item that Grace decided she wanted from Santa. A few days ago she started declaring that Santa was going to bring her a purple jump rope whenever anyone asked. She's only 3 and I swear she has a photographic memory, so we didn't want to disappoint her and ruin Christmas and the magic of Santa Claus. It's not easy to find a jump rope this time of year, even in the sports/fitness sections of Wal-mart and Target. I finally decided to try the dollar store and wouldn't ya know, I found one. A purple one even. Well, actually it's purple and bright green, but the plastic handles are purple. Better yet, it was only a buck! Anything less than an over-the-top, uber dramatic, jumping up and down while screaming reaction when she opens it is going to be very disappointing considering the mobs of people I had to maneuver around all day today.

As I was running in and out of stores all morning not able to find that darn jump rope I was really worried about how she would feel tomorrow morning if she didn't get it. I was also wondering how many Christmas Eve's my parents spent running around trying to find the presents I had been telling everyone Santa was going to bring me (that weren't the original ones I had asked for). I'm pretty sure there were a lot of them, and I'm pretty sure my parents did everything in their power to find those presents for me. I don't remember a Christmas when I didn't get just what I wanted or asked for. My parents are pretty great like that. I'm sure when I was a kid they were praying that someday I would have children who would do the same thing to me as I did to them... and they're prayers are being answered!