What price peace?
In my case, the price of peace and quiet is, evidently, $2000.
If you reference some of my earlier posts or perhaps run into my husband you will know that I am extremely, extremely cheap. I prefer frugal and careful but my husband says no, it’s cheap. I come from a line of cheapies. My grandparents, very well off, are fondly remembered by my grandma wearing $2 grocery store keds b/c why spend $20 for the real thing? (She was cheap, he wasn’t–there’s a story passed through of how for Christmas, she asked for a coat, she got a fur coat–wasn’t so un-pc then–and was overheard by one of her ten kids complaining “I just wanted a coat to go to the grocery store”!)
Anywho I decided that my girls deserved a new jungle gym for the back yard–our house came with one, but it was 8 years old, filled with splinters, had no rungs (since I tried to climb it to reach something and broke them all, a real boost to my ego–note to self, diet–) and the slide was “ganked”. Ganked is a new word Aunt Erin taught my impressionable youngsters so we’re pretty psyched about that. I guess it could be worse.
I was willing to pay $1000 for said jungle gym which would have gotten me a board with a swing hanging off it. The most reasonable we could do without it being one swing for three girls to share was about $2000. Now I’m aware that these items are for sale at BJ’s, etc but my husband said “I refuse to trust myself with my children’s safety” and a co-worker, who bought the Costco item, subsequently spent $500 on a truck, $700 on tools, and dedicated 17 hours to building the swingset. After BunkBedGate ‘07 I’m all set with projects that large.
Psyched about the jungle gym, kids are too. Played for a full 30 minutes. And then were done.
Till they found the BOXES from the jungle gym. That occupied a full 45 minutes. They played sleep (generally voted the most boring game in the world, but led DAILY by our oldest. To play, you pretend to sleep. Actually, our babysitter is a big fan of this one.)
I’m SO not throwing away the boxes. For weeks! What a great “free bonus”!
Truth be told they did return to the jungle gym. So that was good. I think they’ll get some good play out of it. In my ongoing quest to get them playing on things without me constantly in the mix this is about a 70%. I do need to push them on swings (they refuse to learn to pump) but if I’m not there they somehow figure out to have fun without me. Now if only said fun were all-day…