New Toys- what’s the magic number, or frequency?
Aye! Every parent’s favorite phrase, shouted from across the house, “mama! come here, look at this commercial! that’s the transformer I was talking about!”
A couple of months ago, I was hearing that every five-ten minutes if Jackson were watching television. I finally told him that I was incapable of coming to see every time he saw something on television that he thought he “wanted/needed” and that it would be best if he keep a list to himself, and then he can give that list to Santa at the end of the year.
ha ha, that turned into “Mama! we need to put ____ on the list!”
I have told him now on several occasions to keep his own list… that mama has too many things to remember. Hee hee… scribble scribble scribble….
Ahhh, but now…. oye…. the asking, the pleading…. and my response is usually, “you have plenty of toys”, yadda… and I have also given him a little talk about household economics too. With a little illustration of a house, and a stick figure of mommy, and money, and the different things that require money throughout the month…. and I’ve explained that if we were to spend money all the time on toys and things we want, then we wouldn’t have water with which to take a shower… he gets it.
It has, however, been quite a while since I bought him anything, and he came rushing in to tell me that he really wanted some HotWheel thing… argh…. I thought to myself, ummm, is there any harm in just allowing it every once in a while? Say, “okay fine, but there is a dollar limit”? Let’s say this HotWheel playset is not at the store, do I tell him that the limit is the price, so if he’s going to choose something else, it has to be $20 or less?
$15 or less?
and instruct him that is it for a while?
