I tend to be scatter-brained on a good day.

Add the natural craziness of Christmas prep and the added stress of directing a production in the first week of December, and I can’t be trusted to remember anything.

In the week after the play, I forgot two major things.  One was a girls-only party given by a good friend.  I honestly had no nagging feeling that I was supposed to be doing something that night.  I just completely forgot about it.  I was so frustrated when someone asked me the next day why I hadn’t been there.  If there are a bunch of women hanging out and laughing, I want to be there.

Grrr.

But worse, much worse . . . was what I forgot the following Saturday.

A 4 year old’s birthday party.  I remembered it after the party had already started.  It was a party that my daughter was so excited to go to.  I ran to my gift closet to see what I had stashed away for a girl.  The only thing in there was a little costume that wouldn’t fit the birthday girl.

So . . . I grabbed a doll.  A doll that I had bought to give to my daughter.

A doll that I bought after my daughter fell in love with her in the aisle at Walmart.  A ten dollar baby that I hoped my daughter wouldn’t remember.

Not sure why I thought my remembers-absolutely-everything daughter wouldn’t remember that baby.

Her little eyes widened in horror when she looked inside the bag to see what we were giving.  “But I wanted that baby!”

And what was worse was that she didn’t cry or pitch a fit.  She just looked so incredibly sad.  She longingly watched the birthday girl open “her baby.”

My mommy-heart was breaking.  I’m used to “making do.”  I’m used to scrambling at the last minute because I procrastinated and/or completely forgot.  I get frustrated with myself in these moments.

But to see my child’s heart breaking because of my scatter-brainedness was horrible.

So, I looked for another one.

And looked.

And looked.

I asked every Walmart employee I could find if they’d seen one.  They knew exactly the one I was talking about.  The humongous ten dollar baby that looks real.

Maybe they’re out in the garden area.

Maybe they’re at the front of the store.

Maybe when another shipment comes in . . .

More than once, I fought back tears of guilt.  How could I have given away the one baby my daughter had her heart set on?  I kept seeing flashbacks of her cooing to it and bouncing it on her hip in the aisle the first time she saw it.

I tried to convince myself that Christmas is not about presents, and that this would not, in fact . . . scar her for life.  

But my normally effective in-my-head speech giving wasn’t working.

I kept looking.

And then, on our way to my family’s Christmas last weekend, I stopped at a Walmart three hours away to get a few supplies for our assigned meal.

I took a stroll through the toy department.  I tried not to get my hopes up as I scanned the bottom row on the doll aisle.  That was where I’d seen them before.  I gave up and turned around . . . and right in front of my face was the foot of a humongous ten dollar baby.

At that point, I did cry.

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