My Daughter (The Two Year Old) Criminal

Okay, this one needs some back story.

For those who may be unaware Strawberry Shortcake (an uber-popular line of toys and cartoons from the 1980's for girls) is back. Tessa has discovered Strawberry on DVD and loves her, her friends and their adventures. The lone boy in the series is named Huckleberry Pie. Tessa really loves Huckleberry. In fact, it's possible that she has the two year old equivalent of a crush on ol' Huck. I'd be lying if I said it didn't disturb me a little, but then I remembered Daphne from Scooby Doo and thought that it's maybe not so weird after all.

Here's the thing, though. Tessa calls Huckleberry her brother. At first we thought that "brother" was the only relationship she understood well enough to put her little crush into. But I don't believe that's really the case, I think this goes deeper. You see, Tessa was going along, minding her own business when BLAMMO, she gets new twin siblings. Now, Melody is Tessa's sister, and Tessa is Melody's sister. Melody has a twin brother named Patterson, but...where's Tessa's twin brother? Yes, she knows Patterson is her brother too, but shouldn't Tessa have a twin brother as well? It's a little confusing to her. So Tessa is just trying to process and make sense of her life through imaginative play, which is common enough. This will all surely fix itself in time.

I told you all of that that so I can tell you this.

On Tuesday, Valerie took Tessa and the twins to JC Penny for a little shopping after work. Valerie told Tessa that she was buying some shirts for Patterson, y'know, Tessa's real brother. Tessa replied that she was going to buy a shirt for Huckleberry. Cute, right?

Well, fast forward to Saturday morning. Valerie took the kids for their weekly Library visit and, upon exiting the library discovers a strange article of clothing in the bottom of the stroller. Her first thought was that when our babysitter Kristin borrowed the double stroller the other day maybe she did some shopping and left a tee shirt for her son in the basket.

The conversation went something like this:
"Tessa, did Miss Kristin take you all shopping this week?"
"No."
"Huh. Well why is this in the stroller?"
"I bought a shirt for Huckleberry, Mommy."

I didn't actually see Valerie's face, but I'm pretty sure I know what it looked like. Valerie was completely unaware of the shirt being in the stroller, and left without paying for it or giving it back or anything. So now her two year old daughter has stolen a shirt, and she's an accomplice. Great.

Valerie called me at work, and we decided that obviously the shirt had to go back, and that Tessa should go along so that she could maybe learn something from this whole ordeal. So a few hours later I get the following text:

"Tessa apologized to every woman in the store-even the headless mannequin. All is forgiven."

Before they got there, Valerie explained how they had to go back to Penny's because Tessa took something without paying for it and they had to return it, and Tessa had to say she was sorry. So to every woman they encountered at the store Tessa said. "Are you Penny? I'm so sorry..."

And that was Saturday afternoon.

P.S.-I know I said I'd talk about the animals, but this was too good not to share. Pets next time.

P.P.S.-I had to explain to a lady at church today that Tessa doesn't have a brother named Huckleberry and we're not expecting one either. Just imaginary. She then informed me that there are twins in her family too, and the older siblings made up imaginary twins as well, so I guess this really is normal. Nah, it's still pretty weird.