Wait, what?

This morning I took Xavier, Jake, and an imaginary chipmunk to the Minnesota Zoo - which has a large part to play in my quest for sanity during the winter here. We had a great time, but after lunch I noticed Xavier was missing one of his all-time favorite dinosaur mittens. So we revisited many of the exhibits playing I Spy, but at an aerobic pace. As I'm dragging the boys, I'm berating myself for not just letting it go. It's a huge zoo, we've been all over, whininess is rapidly approaching, and it is JUST a mitten. So of course I'm ready to give it up, just when we find it approximately 3 feet from where I noticed it was missing in the first place. Echoes of Mom - "Where did you see it last???" After our mandatory popcorn stop, we're driving home and it occurs to me that no, it wouldn't have been that easy to replace errant mittens this time of year because Target is only carrying swimsuits now. And oh wait - I can't just run into Target. I'd first have to make the Obligatory Tour of Second-Hand Stores, which would most likely not have any mittens left either. So now it sets in, that this whole endeavor will be a bit more complicated than I'd thought. Of course there is the available cop-out: a pair of mittens - or at least 5 right-handed ones - is a necessity for a Minnesota winter. But not until I've made a good faith effort to find them used.

I'll have to be incredibly honest in my posts, and commit to self-disclosure any time I need to purchase items new. I now have a bit of a following (friends who respond to guilt trips and shameless self-promotion) so the accountability factor is there. I really need to be mindful of the decision-making process that has been integrated so smoothly into my consuming patterns I don't even register it happening.

My wonderful and wise friend Rebecca wrote a fabulous e-mail in which she encouraged me to include borrowing and regifting in my bag of reduce/reuse/recycle tricks. (not borrowing and then regifting the same item, as that would be awkward...) She has been living simply for years now, partly because as a stay at home mom, there's less income available to the family. Her and I share an important but errant mindset: if we're not making the money, we aren't justified in spending it. We both identify this as wrong, as taking care of our kids is a family project, just not a wage-earning one. But there's part of me that doesn't believe my work is on the same level as my husband's, due mainly to that pesky absence of a paycheck. Again - this is one of those places where rational mind and emotional mind beg to differ. For some reason it's hard to be a feminist and a stay-at-home mom without the internal discord around finances. And woe to anyone else who says I'm not working! Hapless survey telemarketers that ask my occupation and then say "So you don't work, then?" always get a lecture. But in the self-evaluation, I'm not quite as clear as all that. Repeat after me: "It's OUR money." ten times really fast. Believing it though, takes a bit more than that, at least in my world.

Just as I'm ready to sign off for today, as if on cue, Xavier comes into the room saying "Can you get money so we can go to Target and buy things?" Specifically, a new truck. When asked why he needs one, he says the one that has a tractor is broken so we have to get a new one. Of course the tractor/trailer combination in question was a poor purchasing decision from last fall that still irks me. It was so securely fastened in its' overpackaging - wire and plastic thingys - that I actually broke the damn thing as I was getting it out of the package. My frustration tolerance is particularly low with all things mechanical - no Bob, I can't look at it as a fun challenge - and I was more than miffed. So here's another silver lining to buying used: none of that incredibly annoying packaging.

As I was thanking the Gods of Childhood Development for short attention spans, Xavier comes back in the room asking "Where's you Target card, Mom?" He's 4, dammit, and I haven't had one for over a year, rarely use store credit cards, etc. (<> ). From the mouths of babes indeed.