Alice: The Criminal

The scene of the crime

Today during my free 2 1/2 hour preschool break (and by free, I mean only 2 kids instead of four), Alice, Jane & I went on a quest for Canyon’s birthday present (his birthday’s tomorrow…so if you haven’t sent a gift yet…better get on that). Now, let me explain: Canyon almost always gives very specific instructions on what he wants for his birthday or Christmas…this time being no exception. The gift, however, is a little quirky, a little odd—very much Canyon. He said that he wants a bucket full of sea creatures. That’s it. Simple, right? He has some idea that he’s going to fill the bucket with sand and water—and have his own private ocean to play in—I get it. So the bucket? No problem. A trip to Joann’s found us a really nifty ice bucket, green with a liner, a lid, and an ice-scoop (sand scoop in Canyon’s world) attached to the side. Perfect. Sea creatures? Different story. We went to one of the two toy stores in town and they were closed. We then made our way to the other store, which I had never been in. It’s a darling store called “Woopsie Daisy” and it’s a toy store and kid’s salon in one. The toy selection was a bit smaller, though, and I was disappointed to find only two sharks. Alice enjoyed the store and found lots of little cars and trains to play with as I searched. We finally made our way to Target…and that pesky chain store that we all LOVE pulled through and we found two tubes full of sea creatures.

The rest of the afternoon included Canyon pick-up, babies’ naps, Canyon drawing a “country holiday” scene with chalk on the sidewalk for us to jump into and have an adventure. It didn’t work as well without Mary Poppins, maybe it was because Canyon was dressed in Viking gear instead of Victorian upper class outing clothes. After picking up Lily, we were washing the car and I found two unpurchased toy cars from “Woopsie Daisy.” Alice.
I asked her, “Did you take these cars from the toy store?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t do that, we didn’t pay for them.”
“Oh.”
That was it. I guess it made sense to her. It just cracks me up that she just thought she’d take those home, slipping them into the stroller, and never saying a word. We took them back…but I’m not sure that Alice the Criminal’s days are over. I still think she was pretty savvy and though she acted innocent about the whole thing…I’m not convinced that she knew exactly what she was doing.
Oh kids.