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Sparkle (1)
Last night when I got off the train and jumped into our waiting car, Belle immediately asked me if this Thursday she could go with her friend Emma "to get a mani/pedi"?
"A what??" I yelled.
"A mani/pedi" she replied as if she were a thirty-year old working women paying her own bills.
"Are you kidding me, a mani/pedi?" I replied. "A nine year old shouldn't even know what a mani/pedi is."
Clearly she knows what a mani is as she has been asking for one since that fateful day when her sister went on a play date and got one with a friend. And the gross injustice of that fact will haunt me forever.
So the Mom who almost always says yes, actually said no. A no that was easy to say. A no, because no nine year old daughter of mine is going to get a mani/pedi this Thursday. Playing mani/pedi at home with friends is cute. Begging Drew to do their nails like they always do, is cute and he is even cuter for actually doing them.
So of course as we are having this conversation, which has now moved from the car and into my bedroom as I take my work clothes off, I am fully aware of how much extra effort I am going to have to put forth to drive this point home. All the while thinking, why can't I ever come home and just take off my clothes and put on my pj's?
So this conversation continued and we managed to cover a variety of topics that included, if you have enough money for a mani/pedi then perhaps you should be putting that money to better use, like maybe sponsoring a child in need.
Or how about let's donate to a children's organization in Haiti. Let's give back instead of doing something as unimportant as getting a mani/pedi on a Thursday. I explained that when children grow up getting accustomed to things that they shouldn't be accustomed to at an early age, they are setting themselves up for disappointment later in life when they can't afford to buy themselves all those things that their parents shouldn't have bought them in the first place. And when children get these things at early ages it always backfires as everything will always have to be bigger and better than the last thing they got, to make them happy.
Like, if you get a BMW as your first car, what kind of car do you get after that? A BMW isn't a starting car, it's an ending car. Then we discussed how material things even start to lose their luster if they aren't earned but rather given. Having Mommy and Daddy buy you something is not nearly as rewarding as earning it on your own.
By the time we were done, they were all like, "yeah, I never want you to buy me a brand new car. I want to buy it myself."
And I was like, "yeah, that is so much cooler to buy it yourself."
Belle was all like, "yeah totally. I would rather have an old beat up truck like Bella does in Twilight."
Lily was all like, "yeah, me too. I want a beat up old truck too. Like, who would ever want their parents to buy them
