Hey Ellie

Yesterday morning we woke to the sound of...

Spencer: (said in a loud voice of shock and amazement) "Hey Ellie, there is a bike in the bathtub".

Everyone else was asleep, including Ellie. She had no recollection of him talking to her.

My first foggy thought was, oh (insert profanity) we are so busted. You see, this would be his bike for his 3rd birthday that doesn't happen for nearly two more weeks.

And yes, his bike was in the bathtub! Why? Well, for many many reasons. It was previously in the back of the van, but then we needed to use that space for something else - like groceries - and he would have totally seen it then. Not to mention soccer season has started and we are all in and out of the back of the van for soccer gear. I also wanted to clean it up a bit and get training wheels on it. Once it was all ready to go we were going to take it over to storage.

So I came up with the brilliant idea of the bathtub! It fit perfectly. I wanted to scrub it down anyways. It isn't like the kids use the bathtub very often. Don't worry; they get cleaned now and again via the shower (the preferred bathing choice in our household) in the main bathroom. The bathtub, located in their upstairs bathroom, just isn't used very frequently. We are so maxed out on space that the bathtub was the most viable option to hide something that large! It worked for a good long time. I have no idea what possessed him to look behind the shower curtain that particular morning when the rest of the household was still asleep.

But instead, we were busted. I had just bought training wheels the prior afternoon. I had already cleaned it up.

And then we hear him say "Why is Ben's bike in the bathtub?"

YAY! He totally thinks it is Ben's bike. Our next dilemma was 1) does the bike just disappear (I’m noticing a trend here) or 2) do we "return" the bike to Ben or preferably his mom?

We went with the disappear approach and this morning Spencer was all like where'd Ben's bike go? I want to ride it! You want to ride Ben's bike? Cool! I guess you'll like it in TWO WEEKS buddy. But oh, I have no idea what happened to the bike. It isn't there anymore? Really? Hmmm… I wonder what could have happened to that bike.

We could have, and almost did, go with the return approach but I didn't really want to involve Ben if we didn't have to. I think it would have been way confusing to Ben. He and his sister are all amped up for their birthday next week and I just didn’t want him to 1) have to get that it wasn’t his and 2) have to count on him to keep that secret for two whole weeks.