Lanie received a slinky as a birthday party favor, which she played with constantly and then insisted she should take to her friend's house. At her friend's house it was tangled up by his toddler brother. I told her she could replace it, and I would pay for half and she could pay for half with her allowance money.
Vivian and I took Jack out for a walk and left Lanie on Amazon to look at the Slinky choices, of which there are many. A huge downside to being a single mom is the limited amount of time I have to devote to anything unscheduled, particularly on a weeknight, which includes looking for Slinkies. We came back from the walk and she showed me the ones she liked and I ordered one.
A few days later I got a package from Amazon, opened it and found a giant Slinky, not the Slinky I had ordered. When I was alone with Lanie I took it out and asked her where it came from.
"Hmmm..." she replied, "Amazon?"
"Yes," I agreed, "it did. But who ordered it?"
"You?" she asked.
"No, I did not order it. Remember, you were looking at Slinkies when Vivian and I took Jack for a walk. So maybe you ordered it? And you need to tell me if you made a mistake and did."
"Nope. I didn't order it," she told me.
"Well this is very mysterious," I told her. "You didn't order it, and I didn't order it and here it is."
"OH! I remember now," Lanie said, "Jack ordered it."
"Jack ordered it." I repeated. "That's strange, because Jack was on a walk with me."
"Right," she said pausing. "Then I was looking at the Slinkies and he ran right in and jumped on the iPad and it got ordered!"
"Uh huh." I can't win. I took the rest of her allowance money, (giant Slinkies are expensive) and called it a day.
