Today I spent an exorbitant amount of time catering to my child’s desire to find the perfect toy at Toys R Us. Yesterday, I had bribed promised my son a new toy as a reward for exceptionally good behavior at the doctor’s office. He wouldn’t let me forget it either and gleefully reminded me that we needed to take a trip to the Toys R Us after lunch. We had a short argument about Target versus Toys R Us, but I caved, knowing that I wouldn’t be tempted to overspend at Toys R Us.
He looked at EVERYTHING – games, Thomas & friends, books, Legos, Lightning McQueen, Toy Story, Diego, Imaginex, Animal Planet. After an hour, I had reached my limit. Don’t ask me why I didn’t set a time limit with him beforehand. I tried some gentle prompting to pick out a toy followed by mild threats that if he didn’t pick something out quickly, we would leave the store empty-handed. I didn’t get truly ugly, just reverted to my inner teenager: exasperated sighs and an eye roll or two.
Somewhere in Aisle 5, a lightbulb went off. Yes, I am THE parent. Yes, I am in “control.” Yes, I should direct him to pick a toy and then go. End of story. Maybe I actually said with conviction this time around: “Pick out the toy you want and then we are going. What toy do you want?” And without hesitation, Prince led me back to the Lightning McQueen aisle to pick up yet another Chick Hicks. Thankfully, I got off lightly – only $6.
It could have been much worse.
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Since my SAHM days are coming to end, I am recording how I spend my days so I can recollect how good I had it.
0645 Morning Duty
0830 Coffee break & IM with friend
0900 House-hunting/Making phone calls to set up appointments
1030 Personal Maintenance/Indulgence
1200 Pick up kiddo
1230 Lunch *
1330 Home & IM with friend
1500 Shopping @ Toys R Us (bribery/reward for good behavior at Dr office)
1630 Facebook
1730 Dinner (spaghetti & corn) **
1900 Bedtime Duty
2000 Websurfing – Searching for jobs ***
2100 Ahhhh…..Me time
*Cupboards/Fridge are void of lunch options. Need to get groceries. Holding out til payday doesn’t look like a realistic option.
**Hubby had dinner duty tonight.
***Simultaneously fascinating & frightening. The good news: there are jobs in my former career field out there. The bad news: I am not current. I need a major injection of confidence, dust off the cobwebs in my brain, and bone up on my skills level. Ugh! I so do not want to rewrite the resume. I don’t even think it will be a rewrite. More like a fresh start.
Today’s Expenses:
$ 1.65 Coffee
$10.90 Lunch
$ 6.58 Toys R Us
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