Foiled again, Santa!

My 4-year old daughter is too curious for her own good. She will never be surprised again if she keeps it up. I am always an early Christmas shopper but more so this year since I will have a little baby around the time most people are doing the majority of their holiday shopping. So I have been buying a few things each payday. Ray and I went out shopping alone yesterday and so we got a few things for the kids. I put them in the black reusable bags after we left Wal-Mart but unfortunately they still stuck out a little bit. We also went to the commissary so our van was full of groceries and bags. The kids always want to help bring in the bags so I told Ray to bring those ones in first and hide them in our closet. Did he? No.

So he got most of the stuff out of the car and attended to leave those ones in until later although I again told him to bring them in quickly and hide them in our closet. He still needed to get the boxes of diapers out of the van so he left the tailgate open and told the kids that there was nothing else to get out there. Well, Timmy and Sheila go out the door while we are both in the kitchen. Then Ray leaves and I hear him say, "Hey, get out of there." I know exactly what has happened. I make my way out to the front of the house and sure enough, Sheila has opened the one bag with the gift for her in it, has pulled it out, and is happily exclaiming, "I like that. I want to play with that."

I quickly gather up the bags, tell her it is not for her and take them into the bedroom. Now I have a disappointed 4-year old and a foiled Santa. Well, actually that gift wasn't going to be from Santa so maybe he isn't foiled yet. But this isn't the first time she has gotten a peek at things. I think I am going to have to shop only while she is at school. Ray said that she won't remember what it was by Christmas but Sheila has a memory on her. The other day she asked for a red teddy bear wanting to play with it. I got rid of it over 6 months ago because she never played with it and she had so many stuff animals, she wouldn't miss some of them. Boy was I wrong.