So ... I was on my way home and decided to stop into a thrift shop that was having a 50% off sale to see if any of the kids stuff was on sale. I nabbed a fantastic pair of DESIGNER kids jeans ... like MEGA designer jeans (I'm such a brand name/label junkie, I know) for $2.50. Two dollars and fifty cents. Yeah. That's right. I rock.
I was sure that was the reason I'd had such an overwhelming sense to take money out of the bank. I was super excited about my deal of the century.
Later that night I had to take Jackie Chan to Family Math Night at his school. Yeah ... Family Math Night. I was a bit scared of Family Math Night to be perfectly honest. The information given to parents about this event was that there would be some magic show and then some of the teachers would be playing math games with the kids and parents to help parents learn fun ways to do math stuff with the kids at home.
Yeah ............. fun and math do NOT belong in the same sentence. Ever.
AND ... I was terrified that I was going to be completely humiliated because some primary teacher would ask me a ridiculously easy question like 9 + 4 and I'd panic and be all stumped and confused and look like a total idiot in a room full of public school kids and their super smart parents ... so I wasn't really looking forward to the whole experience. But Jackie Chan was. So, we went.
We were in the group that got to see the magic show first. Kids love magic. Jackie Chan LOVES magic. He was front row center and mesmerized the entire time.
He was dying to get up on stage. He didn't get picked and I watched his little shoulders droop when he realized the show was over and he wasn't picked to help out with a magic trick.
I was at the back trying to pull myself together on his behalf so I could have the "you're not always going to be picked baby" chat with him and turn it into a "wasn't that totally AWESOME anyway" conversation when I heard the magician say ... "At the end of the show you can purchase my instructional DVD that will teach you how to do these tricks at home to wow your family and friends for only ten dollars" ....
And my little Jackie Chan turned around with such a look of hope in his eyes ... as if his entire world depended on me having ten dollars in my wallet at that moment and if I didn't it would ruin his life forever.
And I smiled and nodded at him. Because I did have ten dollars in my wallet. Because I went to the bank. Because God told me to.
And my little Jackie Chan burst into smiles and was so filled with joy. He ran to the magician to ask for his very own copy of the DVD.
I have never been so happy to have ten dollars in my wallet. Ever. Not because I would buy anything for him at any time ... but because I know how much he loves magic and I know that he has asked me almost a million times how magicians do their tricks and make stuff appear and disappear and on and on and on ... And I was able to give him something in that moment that he'd wanted forever.
And it only cost ten dollars.
(As an aside ... the rest of math night was good as well and I didn't totally embarrass myself or Jackie Chan - much. There was a moment when I was trying to add up dice really fast and then add that number to the score in front of me and there was a teacher leaning over me saying "isn't this fun" and all I could think of was that it was about as much fun as giving birth and there was no baby as a reward at the end ...)
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