I started babysitting when I was 12 years old. I made $5 an hour and had three great clients I babysat for all of the time. At Christmas, my Grandma Knapp would give me a check for $100. When I still "believed", my parents would use the money to buy my gifts. Once I figured out the whole my Christmas gifts are in a suitcase in my mom's closet thing (sorry mom) I got to pick out what I wanted to buy. $100 was big time. Shit, $100 is still big-time to me! The best thing I ever bought you ask??????? My yellow SONY SPORTS Walkman with auto-reverse and the TOP GUN soundtrack...it ruled.
Throughout the year my parents gave us what we needed plus a little extra. They paid for all of my college and when I graduated and got my first job (did I mention I got a job with benefits on Friday and walked in graduation on Saturday) they even gave me a down payment for my brand new Saturn SL1 2-door silver with a spoiler and a CD player...that was a stick shift and that I thought was the coolest, car, ever.
I always got expensive shoes and jackets. When I wanted something big (you know Girbaud jeans or a new Swatch Watch), I begged my mom and if we couldn't find it at TJMaxx, put it on layaway and pay for it a little at a time, my mom would pay 1/2. When she thought what I wanted was ridiculous (for example Guess overalls) then I paid for the entire thing.
All of of this came rushing back to me today, when I was buying da'Suser her THIRD pair of winter boots. Why three pairs you ask???? Because while the first 2 pairs worked great in the cart at TARGET once I got home and actually wanted her to wear them...she started to convulse as I attempted to put them on. Once I forced them on, she dramatically fell on her knees and started to CRAWL in between screaming and flailing and banging her head on the floor. I wouldn't want her to bang her pretty little head in the slushy, snow.
Total cost for her boots? $85...$40 of it are in 2 Target rejects, now donated to an 18 month old who is a little less dramatic (might I suggest a boy who doesn't mind wearing pink boots).
The other $45? I'm paying for half. I left Susie in her stroller with a bucket, a Dum-Dum sucker and a bell on Front Street trying to earn the money for the other half...for now, she is only wearing 1 boot.
xo --- B.M.
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