How to pack for vacation and other stories

"Leif do you want to pack your bag for vacation?"

"Yes mommy!" and he runs off to his room.

A few minutes later he hauls back his little rolling suitcase packed...

with a roll of paper towels (where did those come from?), Green Eggs and Ham, and a matchbox car. "I ready now!" he announces.

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And from the annals of where did he pick that up?

"I tell you what...." starts about 75% of sentences currently.

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The story of the most unluckiest starfish... ever.

AB was retrieveing oysters (from our seeded beds) to haul back home and decided to bring a starfish up to the cabin for Leif to touch. It was a large purple starfish and Leif was enamored. He touched the spines and called them "little teeth". We looked at how the starfish ate and touched the little tentacle suction cup things. (It is SO fun showing a child a new thing.)

We manhandled the starfish for a little while and Leif decided he wanted to bring the starfish home. I found a bag to put it in. Leif marvelled and dragged the bag around the cabin.

We were driving home and Leif starts wailing, "MY STARFISH!!"

I calmly told him daddy put it in the back of the car. AB looks at me and raises his eyebrows, "I did?"

"Yes," I tell him, "I put it in a bag next to the cooler."

"Umm, no," he tells me, "I didn't put it in the car."

More wailing from the back seat. "MY STARFISH, MY STARFISH!"

"Leif where did you put your starfish?" we ask him.

"In the garbage," he says.

"Which garbage," AB asks hopeful it is the garbage bag that is in the back of the car to go to the dump on the way home.

"The garbage," he says between wails.

Lucky AB gets to paw through the garbage while dumping it. No starfish.

Yeah, we are going to NEVER hear the end of it if the cabin is stunk up by a starfish.