This Post Brought to You by Mom, and the Letter P...

I realized late last night the reason I cannot deal with wee small folks on anything other than a non-professional level...barring that, no more than two at a time. (I did a fabulous job baby-sitting back in my day, after all.)

But when my mom called last night, first to lament about the fact that I might have a killer car (and not in that slang-tastic "killer" way either, she was taking about the Toyota recall), and then, and what was really more important, to make me procure "another" piggy bank like the first I'd gotten for my niece....I will admit I was kinda confused on both parts.

As much as I'd love a new car every year...just for that new car smell...my Matrix is not on the recall list, it being older than the models listed...besides, I checked, and the hooks that hold my floor mats? Are kinda burly. I think I'm good (knock on wood).

The piggy bank, however, really stumped me. As much as I think that some Hello Kitty stuff looks as much like a cat as oh, I dunno, my left foot? I never thought it looked anything like a pig. And here my mom was insisting that I needed to replicate the gift I'd given my niece for her birthday so my nephew could stop wailing at his lacking of it...Hello Kitty dolls? Hello Kitty markers? Hello Kitty pens? (A seasonal (xmas) store at the mall was closing...50% off EVERYTHING.) What did he need so badly that his heart was breaking (okay, really it was my heart breaking hearing him crying in the background) with my dad (my dad!) trying to sooth him ("ya, ya, ya, mijo, ya, ya, ya.")

There had been no piggy bank in my gift box...I was at a total loss. Then she went on to describe it (in a pink box, with "shelves" for the paint and decorations), and I absolutely knew it was neither Hello Kitty, nor something I had bought. But I would be damned if I could not find one to placate this child.

My mom handed him the phone and he calmed down enough to describe it in utter detail (it was at his house, and he was at my folks' house)...and I just about started to cry when he was sniffling and telling me it was bigger than a matchbox car and has glitter and stickers and he didn't care if the box was pink. Did I mention he just turned 5?

Then technology came to my rescue. I googled as I spoke to him and thought I'd maybe found it, but needed to be sure (I could not send him something almost but not quite what he was lamenting about...just could.not. So I asked him to get one of the adults to send me a picture of it using their cell phones. Tio Tony! We were at the point of having him take the phone to my baby brother's room when my mom said she'd go to their house (they live next door) and have my SIL send me the picture.

It's a match: Decorate your Own Piggy Bank by Melissa & Doug. The only catch is that I can't find a local place to procure it. I'm totally calling them this AM to see if they can help me find a place here in Seattle or down in LA so that this can be taken care of. And it must be taken care of.

Andy was totally baffled by all of this...along the lines of, "You must really like your nephew." Well, duh, but aside from that...it's who I am and how I react when someone of the young and helpless variety are so upset that they are losing it. (Remember Sally Struthers and her suffering kid commercials? KILLED ME.) And as the tia, auntie, big sister, or even just good friend of the parents? I can do stuff like this. Well, especially for the niece and nephew, gramma is the usual suspect, spoiling rights are obviously hers, but I had the google at my fingertips this time...so we had to do it in tandem.

This, however, is also why I could never walk into a classroom of under 6th graders (dude, sometimes, 6th graders were just so wee and so pathetically helpless that I had to give them up too) as a substitute teacher. And NO WAY was I taking on a class of my own super-littles when I did do the teaching thing. I can't be everyone's go-to auntie, it would have drained me dry.

I'll just keep spoiling other peoples' kids, as is my right when I'm not being paid to look after/teach them.