The story of the coal and the cow pat.

It was around Christmas time and I was writing out my presents list. Jordy saw it and wanted to know what she was getting. So I wrote "a lump of coal". Jordy didn't believe her mum really meant it. I had to explain to her that if you were "naughty" you got a lump of coal and if you were "nice", you got a present.

Well, Greg was telling a co-worker about this and she just happened to have a bag of coal at home.So she very kindly offered to bring us a lump. (Actually she was trying to get rid of the whole bag but we weren't taking it.) Which was nice because we had already tried to find some and it was proving to be very difficult.

Mean parents that we are, Greg and I wrapped the coal and gave it to Jordy for Christmas. She's such a good girl she tried to pretend that she liked it. We must really be mean parents because she genuinely thought that that was all she was getting.

We did eventually give her her real presents and she was genuinely grateful. Jordy actually displayed her lump of coal on her shelf. Every now and again it would get lost but it always somehow resurfaced.

Fast forward a few years. Jordy's birthday was coming up and for some reason the "coal story" was resurrected. Jordy kept pushing us to tell her what she was getting for her birthday so we said a cow pat. She didn't belive us until I mentioned that just like you can send people flowers, you can send them cow pats. Honest! $10 for a small one and $15 for a bigger one.

This time Jords did belive us. She then proceeded to tell everyone she was getting a cow pat for her birthday. She actually seemed to be enjoying the telling and was ooking forward to receiving this "most wonderful of all presents."

Well, imagine our surprise to see Jords face fall when she opened her present and......no cow pat. She was so disappointed in fact, that it became the running joke every year.

Until this year. Greg and I were at a conference, during Jordy's birthday, on a walk and came across lots of cow pats. So I determined that it was time to stop making liars of ourselves. It was time to deliver. So we texted Jordy to prep herself for finally recieving this gift. Of course she didn't belive us, but..... she wasn't sure.

When we got home I showed her our photos of the conference and one of them was.... a picture of her cowpat. I wish a had a photo of her face. She was so relieved that thats all it was.

So.... what next?