The number one lesson I learned from this past weekends yard sale with my son's family was
DON'T SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON THE GRAND KIDS BUYING TOYS
because a year later the stuff is only going to end up being sold on some one's front lawn for 2% of what you paid for it after agonizing for days if it was just "the perfect gift" for that grand child!
There I stood Sunday morning looking out over a sea of toys that I had lovingly purchased over the past two Christmases and birthday's to see price tags hanging off the ears of the frog that was now for sale on Sandra's front lawn. Granted . . . the twins had out grown the frog and it was time for it to go but it still killed me to see those dollar signs fly by as I realized what it cost REALLY wasn't worth the fun the kids had with it. OR WAS IT ? Hard to put a price on toys. One kids favorite toy is worth a million dollars so who knows if it was worth the price I paid.
I did come to the conclusion that in the future I am buying each of my grand kids ONE gift for birthdays and holidays. YES Kyle and Bridget, I have put this in writing and am signing my name to it! For all these years my eldest child has begged me to buy Abby only ONE gift and I have insisted on showering my first born grand child with dozens of gifts. That has followed suit with all the following grand kids but after seeing the amount of unused and forgotten toys at the sale of the youngest grand kids I realize how very over indulged these kids really are. (Kaelin and Finn less so and Abby and Roman even less than that but non the less we are an over indulged society in general.) And so I really am going to make a HUGE effort to cut back and slow down, (much to the complete and utter dismay of Smith who's birthday is coming up in July so he will feel the direct hit from this promise.) Not to mention the fact that Grand ma is in a different financial bracket these days so gifts will not flow as freely anyway but this yard sale really did wake me up a bit to the excess we have.
The fact that I had contributed about 80% of the toys to the yard sale makes me ashamed to admit that I have stocked my garage like Toys R Us basement sale room. The move from house to condo has caused me to get rid of all the toys. What didn't make it to the yard sale is going up on Craig's list and what doesn't go on Craig's list is getting donated to Goodwill or the Veterans. There's a place for all this and it's not in my house.
Too bad I didn't listen to H all those years ago when he would tell me, "THE KIDS DON'T NEED THAT!"
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