He Knows What He Wants

Parker does this thing where if a holiday or event is coming up he uses it as an excuse to buy whatever he wants, then tells me "It's for my ___________ ( fill in the blank with birthday, christmas, anniversary, or valentines day etc. )". Well, that makes it hard for me in that I feel guilty not getting him ANYTHING for these special occasions, but at the same time he's already spent twice as much as I was planning on. I'm working on getting him to understand that the gifts for these occasions are supposed to be just that... GIFTS, not excuses to buy yourself stuff. :) We had a little set back in this lesson yesterday...

Here's the story. I was in class while Parker went to nearby Blockbuster's closing sale with a friend. Later that day as we were driving home Parker told me about going to it and seeing so many great deals on blu rays. I just asked what some of the movies were that he got and such and he claimed he couldn't remember... essentially I didn't think it was a big deal because he couldn't even remember one movie title, so I think that was the end of that conversation. Later that evening here's how it went:

Scene: Parker and Maren are preparing for dinner, watching a little tv or something like that when Maren notices the box sitting by the TV.

Maren: Hold on, are these the movies you got today?

Parker: Yeah, there were so many great deals, people were going crazy!

Maren: So how much did they cost?

Parker: Well, retail these movies would add up to at least $1000 dollars.

Maren: Uh, you didn't answer my question, how much did they cost?

Parker: (Smiling a sort of "I hope you're not mad" smile) Um, around $300.

Maren: Well, Happy Birthday.

I just had to laugh about it. I just thought it was funny that he tried to sort of get around my question by pointing out that he got everything on sale. Later that evening he told me that he and his friend had practiced how he was going to tell me. I just laughed again. I'll just have to figure out what tiny little thing to get him now. Any suggestions? Any good deals at the dollar store lately?

Here they are, Parker's 25 presents he gave himself...