Meet the newest member of our family

Not quite what you were expecting, huh?

Lately the boys have been really into watching YouTube videos of other people making videos about Mario characters, and then when they're stalling at bedtime, they run around and re-enact those videos. I'll tell ya, it's really hard to make them stop playing and go to bed when we can hear Child 1 yelling "let's pretend this is Toad!"

In an effort to foster Child 1's new interest in playing and pretending, Hubs went to Fry's and brought home a stuffed Mario and a Yoshi. Mario was snatched up by Child 1, who immediately demanded that we go back to the store and get him a Luigi, too, and Yoshi was given to Child 2.

Unfortunately, at least as much as we know, the pretend play was not, in fact, bolstered by the appearance of both Mario and Luigi (yes. Of course I went right out the next day and got it). However, Child 2 immediately developed a somewhat unnatural attachment to his Yoshi doll and, seriously? The damn thing hasn't been out of his clutches ever since. I think he might be in love with it. He sleeps with it, he brushes his teeth with it, he has Yoshi brush his teeth, he sits him next to his plate at the dinner table and has the damn thing "eat" his food. With a fork.

The day after Hubs brought Yoshi home, Child 2 insisted on taking Yoshi to school with him, only I wouldn't let him actually take it into his class. So, he made me walk all the way to his classroom door so that he could "say goodbye" at the last possible second, but only with the promise that I would bring Yoshi back with me when I picked them up. Which I did, of course, and as I stood there on the yard waiting for his class to come out, I was chatting with a fellow parent and explaining why I was holding this stuffed animal thingy, and I said "I bet he forgot all about it, anyway" and she suggested I pretend that I forgot it to see what happened. So, I hid it behind my back and when he came out of the building, he spotted me with my hands behind my back, and you wouldn't believe the look on his face. It was just sheer bliss. And he came up to me and grabbed the Yoshi from behind my back, and I said "I was hiding it, how did you know I had it with me?" And he said "if you had forgotten it, you wouldn't have had your hands behind your back."

Touché.

On Saturday we went to the store and Yoshi (I said "can I call you Yosh?") had to "smell" every piece of fruit in the place. Then "he" picked out some apples to buy and later when Child 2 wouldn't eat the apple I gave him? He explained to me that he likes his apples a lighter shade of red than the one he had. I said "WTF? YOU picked it out!" and he says... "No I didn't; Yoshi did."

On Sunday he had a birthday party to go to, and I had to drag his ass there. He didn't want to go, he says, because "I just want to be with Yoshi all day." He went, eventually, of course..... but only because Yoshi was waiting in the car in the parking lot the whole time.

Sigh.

Welcome to the family, Yoshi. I guess. Just don't expect me to feed you or anything....

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