Show Me the Money

Guess who dressed Macie in the "Daddy Loves Me" onsie...Oh, and forgot to button it up. That would be Daddy!

It’s no secret that I am a shopaholic. Seriously. I don’t crave alcohol or narcotics, but I internally struggle to avoid unnecessary expenditures. For some strange reason I get pleasure from walking around a store and making a purchase- even something small. As soon as I get the slightest bit bored at home I always find myself justifying a trip to Target. You can always find something that you absolutely need- that you can’t live without. Right.

Like mother, like daughter. Although Macie is just a baby, she already has an unusual interest in wallets and plastic cards. After repeatedly taking Josh’s wallet away from her, we bought Macie her own wallet. It’s zebra print with hot pink trimming- very Jerseylicious.  If she is fussing in public we often hand over the wallet and she takes the cards out one-by-one. For some reason she gravitates to the three most important items- Josh’s debit card, credit card, and drivers license. Then she walks around waving them in the air with a big grin on her face- like she is excited to go spend daddy’s money. It’s a frightening preview of the future. Josh is wrapped so tightly around Macie’s finger I’m fairly confident that she will always have such easy access to the contents of Josh’s wallet.

Right now it’s hilarious to watch Macie waving around “money”, but in a few years I am going to regret encouraging this behavior. Yes, I buy Macie plenty of toys, clothes, bows, and shoes. But I’m not one of those parents who buy their child something every time they go to the store. And I don’t want to be "that mother". Macie will have to learn that you can’t always get what you want, like the rest of us. Now I just have to convince her father that she can’t always get what she wants. Otherwise Macie will end up with every Barbie in the doll aisle (Josh is a sucker for toys, I’m a sucker for books and clothes). I just hope that her pushover father musters the strength to tell his baby girl “no” from time to time.