Why I Bribed My Daughter and How My Son Became The Slayer of Snakes

My four year old daughter gave up naps shortly after she turned one. It has been a long three years. Today, after putting my son down for a nap, I tried to convince my daughter who look exhausted to lay down and take a nap with me. She wanted to play. As I fought sleep I finally resorted to bribing her. I am not proud of this, but I told her that if she would just go to sleep then I'd take her to the store and get her a toy.

She went to sleep.

The joke was on me, though, as by the time my daughter fell asleep I only got to nap for fifteen minutes before my son woke up wanting to play.

Two hours later my daughter woke up. She came down the stairs and the first words out of her mouth were, "Can we go get a toy now?"

I'm a woman of my word so I took them to the store. My son picked out a sword, which against my better judgment I bought him. He uses his baseball bat, tennis racket, sticks and anything else he can find as a weapon to hit his sister with, so a sword was probably not the best idea. Before buying it I told him that he could not ever hit his sister with it and if he did I would take it away.

He said, "No, I'll smote snakes." And that he did. He spent the rest of the afternoon hunting and smoting imaginary snakes throughout our house.

My Kind of Shopping

Yesterday, I took my daughter to Toys r Us to pick out her birthday present. I had envisioned spending forever there going up and down every aisle, debating between toys. I was prepared for it. However, we got there, started going up and down the aisles pretty quickly as she seemed pretty sure about what she didn't want. We made it to the Princess section and right away she picked out the Princess Polly pocket dolls, a Princess nail polish and lipstick kit, and a Beauty and the Beast tea set. My plan was to let her pick out whatever she thought she might want and at the end make her pick a couple of things and put the rest back.

I wanted her to finish looking up and down the aisles, which we did, but it was futile. She was done; she had what she wanted. We walked through the art supply section on the way out where she spotted a Princess drawing set and some markers, which also made it into the cart. At the end the tea set went back since she already had a few different tea sets and I am trying to limit the amount of toys that make their way into our house these days..

It was totally easy shopping trip and more importantly I got out of there for under $50.

A Toys R Us Kid

Our daughter's birthday is next week and for months now she has been saying she wants a two wheel bike. So, we planned to take her to the toy store this week and let her pick one out. A couple of days ago she informs me that she has decided she doesn't want a bike for her birthday because it is too hot outside, but wants it for Christmas instead (when it's not hot).

Then I asked her what she wanted for her birthday instead. She said, "I'm not really sure right now. Maybe you can just take me to Toys r Us so I can look around and pick something out there that I want."

And so it begins.......

When Money Doesn't Grow On Trees

I'm picky about my belongings. I take good care of my things because ultimately I don't want them broken or ruined. Sometimes I go a little overboard, but it comes down to me not wanting to have to spend money to replace something that was needlessly or carelessly destroyed. This carefulness has extended to a lot of my kids' things. I realize they are kids and some toys are going to get broken and that type of thing doesn't both me so much when they are little or if the toys are inexpensive. However, when older children (I'd say four or older) are careless or reckless with belongings and those belongings as a result get broken it upsets me. Obviously, the more expensive the toy the more upset I usually am. As a general rule we try not to buy overly expensive things. However, our children do have some nice toys that were pricey and honestly, I don't have the money to constantly throw around to replace "big ticket" items when they are damaged. It is an expectation that our kids play with toys the way they were intended and I can say that 99 percent of the time we have zero issues with that. They don't break their toys or treat them roughly or recklessly.

So, this morning when my daughter almost broke my son's new train table I about blew a gasket. My husband and I bought him a train set for his birthday. When we bought it we thought he could just play with it on the floor. That was until we opened it, saw how elaborate it was, and realized if we didn't get a train table for it I would be putting it together multiple times a day. No thank you. Off we went last night to buy him a train table, which we put together so it would be all ready this morning.

Fast forward to this morning when the kids are playing at the table, start fighting over a train, and my daughter starts jumping up and down wildly as if that will somehow solve something and comes down on the open drawer. I couldn't see the end result yet, but in my mind I thought for sure it was broken. It fortunately was not. Had she landed a few centimeters to the left she would have ripped the drawer right out of the table. Either way, I was mad (more at her behavior than the result) and she was sent to her room.

I know this may be a flaw, but honestly I don't care. I like my things, and by extension my kids' things, a certain way and I also don't want them getting into the habit of thinking it is okay to treat something badly and oh well if it breaks. What are/were some of your pet peeves when it came to your children's toys?