We make a deal at Walmart

And so we made it to Walmart yesterday afternoon. Puppy was in search of a wallet that cost $3.22 or less. I knew there was no such price, but telling him this was not registering. He had to see for himself because I’m pretty sure he thought I was lying.

We walk in and he asks if he can go to the wallet section. I told him he had to stay at my side today and we would go together because kids should not be walking around the store alone. He complied and we started filling our basket of items.

Then, he saw we were close enough and says, “Now can I go see?” I tell him its okay and to be careful not to make a mess and to put everything back like he found it. I find him looking and moving wallets this way and the other. He is specifically looking for the Velcro wallets because he already knows they aren’t too expensive; and he going to get a wallet, damn it—even if it’s a cheap one. But as he starts to sift through them, he sees that the price tags read $5.00, $9.00, and $12.00. He is disappointed because he knows we made a deal. The deal was if he had enough money he could buy one, if not enough money then he couldn’t get one. It must have taken him about 10 minutes (which felt like an hour to me) to look at practically each and every wallet at the two sections the store had. And it felt like another hour to get him away from them.

He did a bit of whining, as we continued shopping for groceries. But I asked him to calm down and if he couldn’t we would have to leave the store because tantrums are unacceptable. I grabbed my purse and put it over my shoulder saying, “Let’s go home.”  He took a deep breath and said he would behave and he didn’t want to leave. 

We were basically done when we walk passed the jewelry and sunglasses. He turns and says, “I want a bracelet.” “I have money.” Quickly, my mind brainstorms and I think that if there is an inexpensive bracelet, I should let him buy it so that he could spend his money.  We look and look…and finally come to an agreement.  It cost $5.00 but I would put the difference because this was not a wallet. It would be worn on his arm and not put in his pocket, or so I hope. Time will tell. He’s happy, I’m happy he no longer has money and we go home happy with Puppy sporting a new wristband.

Obsession presssures

We are pretty much back to square one. The pressure of not having a wallet has definitely caught up to him. Puppy has gone back to making paper wallets on a daily basis, then realizing that he shouldn't be using paper, so he rips it up and throws it away. Then he's walking around like a very lost soul who's purpose is missing.

The need, the obsession continues. Notice the rip in his back pocket. He's torn three pairs to get the "look" he needs. Puppy mimics people and actions and words. So he's gone to mimicking my brother and the use of his wallet and the torn jeans.  He tries so much to get through the day. He manages to make it through class and after school, but once he comes home there is a lack of structure and he breaks down. He will hide in his room or at the computer desk and quietly make himself another paper wallet. Once he is able to get his cards into the make believe wallet, he is whole again. He goes to bed with the wallet at his side. I only hope he has peaceful sleeps, but I can imagine him dreaming scenes where he has the prefect wallet in his back pocket and him showing it off to anyone whom will give him the time and attention.

 

Well, as it goes...Puppy has been standing or sitting next to me all morning asking for me to get dressed and take him to Walmart so that he can go buy a velcro wallet with the $3.22 he has managed to save and/or find in drawers or even the ground (pennies from Heaven). I've sent him away with the intentions of making a trip to Walmart. But only if I can finish watching my Redbox movie that was started last night, as well as getting one more load of laundry done before we can consider going to Walmart. He's content and has walked away to give me a little space.  I'm attaching pictures to give visuals of his paper wallets. Oh Puppy, you put so much effort into them then throw them away. What a simple yet terrible obsession.

                                                                

Ignore the ID in the wallet. It's my old driver's license. It has come in handy when Puppy has gotten lost at Target and then at Walgreen"s. He has memorized my cellular number and knows that the store personnel can call me to him if he gets lost. But mostly, I'm glad he's learned never to go outside the store without me. Look for me first, because I would never leave him behind.

   

I learn a lesson, too

It was definitely my turn to learn a lesson. Keep two or three steps ahead of Puppy, if possible. He’s a clever one. As you are probably waiting to read, did he or didn’t he pull one over on me? Yes, he did. 

I picked him up from after school care. He had his list of items he still wanted to buy with his now $11.18 since last count. I needed to stop to buy some dog food, so I made a deal with him. No wallets! No tape! And he was in agreement, so I drove us to the dollar store on our way home.

I went towards the dog food and he went to search for whatever. I went to the front of the store with my 14 lb. bag and he met me there with his Ziploc bag filled with loose change in one hand, and a watch in the other hand. Remember, it’s the dollar store, so a watch was only $8.00 plus tax. It seemed like a good deal…he gets a watch, he uses $8.66 of his money which brings the total down considerably, so it was a done deal!

I had also picked up Domino’s Pizza on our way, so we were set for the evening. I asked him to set the watch aside until after supper and then we’d open the ridiculously awful plastic packaging it came in. He knew that if he listened, he’d have the watch shortly and so he complied quite nicely. 

He gobbled down his pizza slices and soda. Then with a quick rinse of the hands he was heading upstairs to tear the plastic wrap. But we were able to stop him from doing it alone and possibly getting all cut up in the process. Ms. H helped him get the watch out and he was excited. He didn’t notice that I was just as excited to not have him talking about his wallet for a few minutes. It’s a short distraction but a safe one as long as he doesn’t start asking for more and more watches.

So on this day, I was the only one learning a lesson.

Another lesson learned

You know how sometimes words don’t come across like they should; and you need to teach a lesson another way?  Well I did just that on Monday. And it seems to have worked.

Puppy was in his usual frame of mind when I picked him up from after school care.  He was asking for this or that, but mostly he was asking to buy some tape at the store so that he could make and tape his paper sleeves to the wallet for his credit cards. His wallet only has one surviving sleeve that managed to survive the scissors, and a flip-it from another wallet that holds cards on both sides of it, and is held onto the wallet with a glued piece of paper at both ends. (I really need to work on learning to add pictures.)

However, as it turns out, he has been going around the house for about four days searching for loose change and not to mention he basically stole my counting jar of change to successfully collect a total of $9.92 to use. To my son, that is a whole lot of money. But to me it’s a pain in the butt, because he's letting his imagination run wild. He wants to buy a wallet, a watch, a credit card holder, tape, glue, faded blue jeans from Academy, etc. This is a birthday wish list, not items you buy with $9.92.

Well like I was saying, I picked him up and he was asking to go to the store, but he forgot he left his money at home. So he quickly searched his truck door handle; that's where he puts change, and he came up with $1.27. He asked if I would take him to buy a tape and didn’t care that he didn’t have enough money. But we parked at the store and I talked to him. If he finds tape, goes to the register and has enough money, then it’s his. If not, I’m sorry. He probably didn’t even hear a word I said and was just itching to jump out of the truck. I could see him through the windows walk over and smile as he found the tape. He waited for two customers ahead in line. Then I saw him put the tape back in its place and walk out of the store. But he wasn’t too sad and his head didn’t hang low. He got in the truck and said, “Mom, you were right, it cost too much.” And even, “My wallet is fine just the way it is, I don’t need tape.” This of course brought a big smile to my face with a saddened heart. I could have given him the money. But what lesson would I have taught him? 

This lesson might have worked this time. But as I’m typing my blog I am laughing out loud all by myself. I just remembered he may have tricked me this morning. As we were going over the places he could use his money at, like school book fair, or the candy store at school…he asked if he could put it all in a Ziploc bag to ask his teacher’s permission or suggestion for how to spend his money. Yep, it all seemed so innocent this morning. I will probably be writing a follow up to this story of how I stopped at the store on our way home, haha!