On Friday night we went out to Home Depot to buy a potted plant for a friend. She was taking me and another girl out to the Getty and lunch in celebration of her birthday. I had offered to drive, but I also wanted to give her a gift. With my limited budget I calculated that a plant would be the least likely to look cheap. And anyone who wanted to go to the Getty Villa would probably appreciate plants in addition to archetecture and antiquities.
I had in mind some tulips, with our gorgeous spring weather on my face, but when I saw the arranged succulent collections I knew that was the right choice; Mary-Ann works all the time, she needs a plant she can ignore. When we got home Little Red was completely in love with the plant. I reminded him that it was not for us, but for Mary-Ann and he had a complete melt-down.
He neared epic tantrum proportions over a cactus, even after we promised him that tomorrow he could go buy his own. I’m not sure how we got him to bed that night, but the next morning when he saw it in the bag with a bow he started up again. “You can go to Home Depot on your Daddy Adventure and choose your own,” I offered.
“I want this one.”
“They have bigger ones.”
“I want this one.”
“And they have ones with different plants and different rocks.”
“I want this one.”
Finally I got smart. “And they have ones that look just like this.”
With a gulp he executed his patended stop-cry.
When I returned from my adventure and caught up on what they had done on their adventure I saw that he had, indeed, bought the same thing. Only his had a bigger rock. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Posted by Zen Mama 
