While I was at work... (Babble)

Saturdays at the violin store tend to be particularly busy.  (Seriously, if you are making a list of recession-proof industries?  Put neighborhood violin store on it.  We don’t even advertise and I am swamped with work.)  This last Saturday went by in one long blur, because there were so many people to help and instruments to take in and send out, and I was a little dazed when I got home.

So dazed, in fact, that I wondered if I was seeing this right when I went upstairs and glanced into my daughters’ room:

Yes, that’s a tree.  With dusty, spray-painted plastic leaves.  It wasn’t there when I went to work.  Apparently one of our neighbors had a yard sale, and the kids pooled their own money to buy the tree.


I came downstairs and said to my husband, “Did you know there is a tree in the girls’ room?”

And yes, he did know.  I often find it interesting in what ways our parenting instincts diverge, but this one took me a minute to wrap my mind around.  Because if I had been home when the kids asked to buy a fake tree covered with dust I would have found a clear way to say, “No.”  The reason being that it’s awful, and unlike other awful things that can be removed from the house while the children are looking another direction (I’m still getting away with the line, “It must have been lost in the move….”) I can’t sneak out a tree without them noticing it’s gone.

Ian said from his point of view, the kids spent their own money on it, and it made them incredibly happy.  He liked seeing them that happy.  So how am I supposed to argue with that?  It’s hard to even be annoyed with that.

I did tell Aden that she lucked out that I wasn’t home that day, because I would not have approved the purchase of the tree.  I asked her where she planned to put it, because it couldn’t stay in the doorway.  I suggested the corner behind the door, but Aden didn’t like that because it would block access to the mirror.  I said we could remove their toy box and put the tree in that spot, but Aden didn’t like that either.

She eventually settled on her terrace as the new home for her tree, which sounds fine by me.  I had envisioned live plants out there, but I can deal with a fake tree on the terrace.  Unfortunately there has been some wind and rain since the tree went outside, and when I checked on it, it looked like this:

So there’s that.  (At least they didn’t bring home something that would pee on the carpet.  I’m scared that’s next.)