Buying Affection

I have a really hard time buying presents for the kids that aren't attached to a holiday, event or bribe, like potty-training. Correction: I have a hard time giving them presents, but not buying them. Which is why I have stock-piles of gifts all over the house. Aaron complains, cause whenever an actual gift-giving occasion comes up, I seem to have all the shopping already done, and he "doesn't get a say".


So last night we were at Sam's Club. Ben has been asking for a "choo-choo" incessantly since we got the fated Imaginarium flyer in the mail. I've been responding with, "Maybe for Christmas..." so now whenever he hears or sees anything associated with Christmas, he repeats "choo-choo! choo-choo!" until I reassure him that I haven't forgotten.


To Aaron, this is akin to torture. Mostly ours. He's all, "All he talks about is choo-choos! He has ONE! Why don't you just get him another one?!" And I'm all, "Sure. Because you want me to get it, it's fine. If I wanted to get it, I'd be spoiling him!" Plus, there's hardly ever a decent selection of his particular type of train left at the stores, and by the time I get that far, he's usually being naughty, so I don't want to reward his bad behavior.


Back to Sam's. Aaron gets seduced by the display of Thomas DVD's + a free engine. $10 for both is a pretty good deal, and Ben has been wanting a choo-choo pretty badly...I remind him that the train in the package will not fit on the track that Ben currently has, but will fit on the one we plan on getting him for Christmas...and the deal is done. The one glitch is the sister sitting next to Ben. She wants a train too, of all things! We bribe her by promising to get her something else (not because "girls don't play with trains", but because we know she won't want play with it until Ben does, and then we'll have lots of fights of "My train!" Just not worth it.) Also: I'm not sure why the movie is about Percy, but the train included is Henry. However, I'm very glad they put the name of the engine on the bottom of of it - they know kids are obsessed about that kind of thing and that parents can't keep track.


Leah spotted this gigantic princess storybook, complete with stickers AND magnets. Unfortunately for my conscience, it's pretty much the same price as the train, so we say yes. Just this once. It is killing me to give them these awesome toys with no strings attached.

It won't happen again (or very often, anyway), no matter how gosh darn happy it makes them.