Never knew that a fun, bead shopping trip to a local craft store could teach me some very important things about parenting!! We went there to get beads for her math work. We went for beads. But, we the artists can never go in with a list, shop, and leave. We feel compelled to browse. We get ideas. We jot those ideas in a notebook (we always have a notebook in our bag!!). Stuff the notebook in the bag. Get back home. After a few days we replace the notebook with another notebook (what do you mean 'why'?? We just do! that's all!) Then the original notebook (like the 5163 other original notebooks) moves on from the bag to the dining table (needless to say we never have a clue how it got there). Then in a few days the book gets so sick and tired of being pushed and shoved that it moves residence to under the dining table. Not the best place. Lesson learnt. So, move to the book shelf (nope! a book shelf is never a good place for these special notebooks and nope! this one is not going to stay there for long either...). After a few days or maybe weeks, it will find it's way to the shoe rack and then to the coat pocket (it's a pocket book silly :))and then to the bedside table, the window-sill, the underbed storage and at last to it's final destination- the invisible notebook-eating monster's tummy from whence it will reappear after a few years and follow the same pathway unless I am so overwhelmed at finding it that I actually decide to consolidate all my ideas into one big notebook (there are a bunch of 'one' big notebooks too) and recycle the 'original' one.
So, getting back to the point, we went bead shopping, saw some other stuff, jotted down ideas, saw a colouring book, took it (another trick is to never take a shopping basket/trolley at any store other than the grocery store. There is only so much one can hold in one's hand). Then, as I was paying up, mini me saw another book. She obviously wanted it. Her cousin has it. Hmmm... I had to draw the line somewhere. I said, "No". She said, "why?". I said, "Because we don't buy everything we
see". And then she said the cutest thing ever. She said, " But Amma! I didn't see it! Now can you buy it for me?". I so wanted to but it for her but I still said no. She cried and it broke my heart to see her crying over a book that cost 3 bucks.
Mini me doesn't do that very often. She very very rarely throws a tantrum for things she wants us to buy for her. Many a times we have given in to her demands. And this time around I would just have bought her the book gladly. But she gave me the wrong reason. She had to learn that we don't go out and buy everything that other people have. Neither do we buy everything we see and like in a store. And she knows that now. It just cost me half an hour of my life, tons of hugs and kisses and a lot of patience. But it was more than worth it. She saw it. She got the point. And she suggested we went home, sorted her stuff, give away some that she isn't using, make some space for her new book on the book shelf and then go to the book store and get something that she likes. Not something she wants just because she saw it at somebody's place.
Now I know I made the right choice and for once I am proud of my parenting skills :) Now, that's a rarity too.
P.S. It helps to give tons of examples from our own lives too ;)
