live and learn

With the beginning of summer approaching, I always think of garage sales. I have always loved going to garage sales, an inborn attraction inherited from my grandma who had a bumper sticker on her pick up truck that said, "I stop at all garage sales!" For my wedding shower she got me, among other things, a glass measuring cup and sure enough, taped to the bottom was a masking tape sticker that read "25 cents." I think of her every time I use it.

I learned what I consider to be one of my first major lessons as a mother at a garage sale. At the time, I had a 2 year old and a 6 month old and my neighbor was having a garage sale. While the boys were napping, I snuck next door to take a look. Why not buy some baby toys for a couple bucks? In the driveway, I noticed a huge Rubbermaid bin full of toys with a sign that said FREE. Inside was a collection of well over 200 McDonald's Happy Meal toys. "And that's not all of them," she told me. I was horrified. Had this mom actually taken her kids to McDonald's enough times to accumulate all those toys? Didn't she realize how unhealthy that food was?

I laugh when I think back to what went through my head that day and have since realized that you just never know what you will do when faced with a certain situation in life. Sure, you can say things like, "I will never let my baby use a pacifier," when you are pregnant and perusing all the books to prepare for your first child but when that baby is 2 weeks old and screaming at 2 a.m. and you are more tired than you have ever been in your life you will for sure be opening the package of Nuks. Or when you are pre-kids and out to dinner at Chili's--just the two of you--and a family is sitting right behind you and their kids are completely unruly and you say something like, "Our kids will never act like that." Well, I have learned to never say never because who knows what life may bring. And, yes our house now contains one Rubbermaid bucket FULL of Happy Meal toys. I am not proud to admit this but I have been known to say, "If you guys can behave at this doctor's appointment, I will take you to McDonald's," more than once in the last 6 years. Live and learn.