The Cycle of Nagging

In the last post I mentioned about Cade nagging me. I’ve started observing a cycle of nagging in our household. I nag at Jay – have you fed the dog, did you remember to call ____, did you write Cade’s books down, etc. Then Jay nags at Cade – get up, get in the shower, have you scrubbed yet, get your clothes on, get your shoes on, etc. So then to make the cycle complete Cade nags at me – why did you throw these papers away (I have to bury his school papers in the trash), why didn’t you run when I told you that commercial was on, you forgot to tell me it was PE day and I wore my crocs, etc. Yes, we all have someone to nag in our house.

Cade has been telling us that he wants to be the black Spiderman for Halloween. I started looking for the costume around the end of September and didn’t have any luck. I even checked Toys R Us and since they didn’t have it and they are the authority on all things toy related I assumed the costume didn’t exist. I’ve tried easing Cade into this bit of information but all it did was result in nagging – Have you looked?, I know it’s there, you really didn’t look did you. So imagine my surprise when Friday afternoon I found one at Walgreens of all places. It was like the clouds parted and the sun shone down on this one arm sticking out of the mess of costumes shoved together. I pulled it out and I heard music playing as I realized that it was his size. I called Jay to find out if I should go ahead and get it or let Cade pick out his own the next day. Jay told me to purchase it.
All the rest of the afternoon at work I kept thinking about being able to surprise Cade with this costume. I knew he was going to be so excited. I couldn’t wait to get home.

I stopped and picked up a pizza and then headed home that evening. What could be better than having the perfect costume and pizza to go along with it. I carried in the pizza and then yelled at Cade that I had a surprise for him. When I got back in the kitchen he was standing there with his eyes closed. I told him to keep them closed and I pulled out the costume and said “SURPRISE”. He squealed with delight and then dropped the bomb on me – “where is the mask”. That’s when I realized our perfect costume didn’t have a mask, it was missing. Then the nagging started – you should’ve checked for the mask, you need to go to the store and tell them there was no mask, why did you buy it if there wasn’t a mask, etc. I felt terrible and Jay ran from the room to keep from laughing. Cade was so distraught that he didn’t even eat any of the pizza. So much for the magical surprise that evening.

The next day we went to Springfield and started combing the Walgreens in search of the black Spiderman. We came up empty handed after two of them and we were starting to get concerned. Jay then started calling the other stores and lo and behold there was one in town that had it. We raced to that Walgreens to exchange ours for one that had a mask. I walked out of the store proudly holding the new costume for Cade to see. All was right in Cade’s world (and my world) again. There was no nagging from anyone for the 30 minute car ride home. Cade was happy and Jay and I were too relieved to speak much at all.