For the record, I only have two children.

Brinley has quite an imagination. Lately she has been really into The Berenstain Bears. About a month ago, Chick-fil-A (our favorite food court destination) started giving out Berenstain Bears books with their kids meals. After reading her the story umpteen times, she had it committed to memory and begged to go to the books store to get more of the stories. We obliged and she now has a small collection of the furry family’s tales.

Anyway, after memorizing these stories and characters, she decided that our family would become the Berenstain Bears.  The family consists of four critical members, Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother and Sister, and an additional cub, Honey Bear, who was not part of the family until 2000.  As you can guess, I became Mama Bear, Scott became Papa Bear, Brinley became Sister and Nora became Honey Bear.  With no one left in our family to become Brother, Brinley decided that he would just be imaginary.  He would join us where ever we went and even had a seat in the car right between Sister and Honey Bear.

So last week, we took a trip to my favorite store, Target.  We were just picking up a few things and were on our way to the check out.  Brinley was helping me to put the items on the conveyor belt and the nice cashier was making small talk with us.  She asked Brinley how old she was and Brinley replied that she was four (because Sister is four, at least that is what Brinley thinks).  Then the cashier asked Brinley what her sister’s name was.  Brinley said, “Oh, her name is Honey Bear.”  The cashier looked confused, but smiled anyway.  Brinley proceeded to tell the cashier, “I have a brother too you know.”  The cashier asked if he was at school and Brinley told her, “No, we just left him in the car for a little while.”

I nearly died!  The cashier looked at me like I had committed a crime (which I guess I could have by leaving my son in the car).  Since we were all paid and ready to leave, I didn’t bother explaining to her that Brother was an imaginary bear.  I just took our bags and left the store.