Tis Better to Give

The other day as we were packing for our Spring Break vacation, I asked Hannah to grab toothbrushes for herself and her sisters. She came to me with a couple of options. She held up two sets of toothbrushes: one pair for her, and one pair for Lauren. (Yes, we often have more than one brush per mouth at any given time.) Each of them have a battery-powered toothbrush. But Hannah showed me hers, and explained that Lauren's still works, but her own does not (batteries died), and since "that's not fair", she chose to pack the regular toothbrushes for both of them (shaped like crayons, in yellow and pink), instead.

I thought it was funny, because it reminded me of myself, when I was about Hannah's age, or maybe a little bit older.

My sister, Jill, was about to celebrate her birthday, and my mom took me to the toystore and let me pick out a gift to Jill "from me". Plus, she agreed (through no small amount of pleading and pestering on my part, for sure) that whatever I picked for Jill, I could get one for myself, too.

Well, I don't know about Jill, but I knew exactly what I wanted! A Sea Wee Mermaid mommy/baby set that you could take in the bathtub! (Wish I had a picture, but you'll just have to look it up--or use your imagination.) These tiny plastic doll sets came in various colors, all very pretty, but the most beautiful of all was the blonde mommy mermaid with the gold scales.

Dilemma: I was old enough to know that since it was Jill's birthday, she deserved the best set, and it wouldn't be right for me to choose the gold mermaid for myself and gift her something of lesser beauty. But I was also old enough to know that I would suffer from severe jealousy every time I saw Jill, not me, swimming that golden mermaid through the bathtub bubbles. And it wouldn't be "fair." I mean, what if she didn't even value the gold mermaid as much as I did?

What to do?...

I had the wisdom of Solomon. (Or, at least, a tactic I had learned from my mother, who constantly had to resolve two girls' fights over one toy.)

Neither of us would get the gold.

Instead, I chose pink for her (because the pink one had brown hair like Jill), and blue for me (because she was blonde, like myself). And I felt very noble for letting Jill have the "girl color".

Does Jill even remember that mermaid toy? I doubt it. Apparently, not many people do, because I can't find a set of any color in its original, circa 1980, packaging.

But, just in case you're wondering what I'd like for my birthday today, here's one idea:

The gold Kenner Sea Wee mermaid set, please.