This afternoon Matan was bugging me to take him to the shoe store for some cool new tennis shoes. It’s amazing (and scary) how quickly these kids’ feet grow and how quickly they wear out their shoes. But that’s another story. So, we drove over to the Naot Store and I quickly looked for a way to keep Zeli (who is almost three) occupied while Matan looked for shoes. They have these inflatable horses in the store that Zeli has always loved to bounce on and I handed him one.

He proceeded to bounce around the store, giggling as he jumped on the horse, fell off the horse, got back on the horse, and started the process all over again. He was having a ball.

Unfortunately, Matan was less successful. I was very excited when he found the perfect pair of shoes, only to have a heart-attack when they told me they were over 600 shekel (nearly $200). Who in the world spends that on kids? Or on themselves, for that matter?! I soon realized that we were not going to be finding shoes for Matan, and we got ready to leave.

And then the trouble began. Zeli assumed that we were leaving – with the horse in hand. And there was NO convincing him otherwise. I contemplated hurling him over my shoulder (have you seen what the kid weighs?) and storming out of the store, but then I stopped in my tracks.

You know what? It’s been about the worst 10 days that I remember having in my entire life. And here was my adorable three year old, with tears streaming down his cheeks, yelling for a little fun on a red inflatable horse. And his birthday IS just around the corner. And he has LOVED this horse every time that he’s been in the store.

And so, giving myself a break, and giving both of us just a bit of inflatable, bouncy joy, we drove home with that horsey on Zeli’s lap.

And he smiled the whole way home.

And so did I.