Welcome to Our Robot Overlords

I am a sucker for random clearance treasures that are found along the back aisles at Target. They are irresistible, even when they're the most pointless of finds. If they're marked down 50% or more, it's as if they have my name written on them. "Buy me!" they call out.

Robot seahorses. $7. How can I not buy the robot seahorses?

(That link up there goes to them on Target.com, where they are not on clearance for $7, which just proves that buying them was a good life choice. Go me!)

So, I bought one and placed it on our kitchen counter. That led to Mila spending hours and hours watching it, tapping the container to wake it up, talking to it, and otherwise not burning the house down. I will happily pay a premium for things that keep that kid from burning the house down, so that $7 bargain quickly became THE BEST THING EVER OMG.

So, of course, I went and bought another one. If one is entertaining, two is even better. And it was true! Mila is still infatuated with her seahorses.

Buuuuut ... when I went to buy the second one, I thought about how it would be kind of cool if I had one for the pool. It would be entertaining to watch a little robot swim around the pool, right? Or, even better, WHAT IF I HAD A LITTLE FISHY?!?!

I totally found little fishies. For $2.00. 

I bought a few because, again, EXCELLENT LIFE CHOICES. I decided the itty bitty fishies would be super awesome in the pool instead of dive sticks. I envisioned gaggles of kids chasing them around and trying to catch them, which, for the record, is exactly what happened. There was much laughing and basically the little fish are the beeessssst.

Except for that one time that it was just Mila and Alexis in the pool. The little blue fishy managed to find its way under the pool ladder, so Alexis couldn't find it. She spent FOREVER hunting for it, all the while I had the pink and orange ones in my hand. They are almost neon in color, so they're super easy to see as they swim around the blue-bottomed pool. That blue one, though. Even when it wasn't hiding under the ladder, it was tough to see.

And, man, Alexis could NOT find the silly thing. I eventually decided it was going to turn into a $2 toy with a dead battery sitting at the bottom of the pool for months. I was okay with that. The only thing was that Alexis was getting frustrated, so I decided I'd give her a moment of victory and throw the other two back in. Bright neon! She would find them quickly!

She found the pink one almost immediately. The orange one, though. 

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE ORANGE ONE WENT.

It vanished into thin air, which made no sense whatsoever. It was easy to see! Except for when it wasn't. We searched under the ladder. We searched in the pool filters. We searched everywhere, but it was gone. So gone. 

So confusing. 

Eventually I declared it M.I.A. and told Alexis and Mila it was time to quit kicking around the pool. I would replace the fishy and blah, blah, blah.

There was a moment when Alexis was talking to me, super frustrated that she couldn't find TWO fish. She was making faces and generally acting a fool when suddenly she screamed bloody murder. You know the cute white girl who goes missing at the beginning of every horror flick? THAT SCREAM. That's the scream that came out of the kid's mouth.

The orange fishy found its way out of whatever hiding spot it had found and zoomed straight at Alexis' butt. Only, she didn't know it, so her reaction was to something suddenly ramming into her at top speed.

Mila and I laughed until we cried. Literally, we so greatly enjoyed Alexis' freak out that we couldn't speak and had tears running down our faces.

Best $2 ever? BEST $2 EVER.