Nota bene: You can’t fool a 4-year-old. Don’t even try.

A few weeks ago, we attended Toby’s cousin’s first birthday party. Toby’s grandmother tried to give him a gift bag, but John and I are pretty firm in our belief that he needs to learn that there are times he doesn’t get gifts and it’s all about someone else for a day. So John intercepted the green bag full of goodies, but not before Toby had for literally 10 seconds seen what the 1-year-old’s sister’s identical bag contained. Toby made no protest when the green bag was whisked away.

That green bag found its way into our car somehow when we went to leave the party, so when we got home I stashed it on a chair in our dining room and it sat there for weeks, in full view. I forgot about it. Someone else didn’t.

Much to his credit, Toby never asked about that bag or its contents. He just lived his life in peaceful co-existence with it.

Then Easter rolled around. My husband is, shall we say, “thrifty.” He decided to cannibalize the green bag’s content to use as Easter basket goods for Toby. It contained a cute little toy pet carrier with a dog and cat in it and a Koosh ball. So he just plopped them down among the fishing supplies and jelly beans.

Toby was overjoyed with his Easter loot. He loved the fish hooks and powerbait. He adored the longhorn cow figurine to join his barnyard collection. And when he came across the toy pet carrier complete with tiny dog and cat, he exclaimed, “Oh good, this is just like the one in that green bag! Now I’ll have two!!!!”

Ba dum bum. Busted.

So now he keeps asking to have the damn matching toy from the green bag. I’ve successfully distracted him so far, but I don’t hold out hope that he’s ever going to give up on it. After all, this is a kid who tonight, on the way home from swimming lessons, just casually said to me, “Mom, do you remember that time I was done with swimming lessons and you and Dad were there but when I came out the door you weren’t there and it made me cry?” (We were talking and missed that his class was exiting the pool area. It took us approximately 10 seconds to get to the door.) AND THAT WAS TWO YEARS AGO. This is the only time I’ve heard of him remembering it. That nugget of guilt-induction has just been lingering in that brain.

So I imagine that at some point I’m going to have to come clean about the Easter re-gifting. Because he is Not. Going. To. Forget. Never try and outwit one of these mini-humans.

Either that, or he actually knows what we did and is just next-level evilly trolling us. Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him. Just yesterday he said very quietly, “Where IS that green bag?”