I Seem To Have Money On My Mind A Lot Lately

Tonight I managed to sell the spare Nintendo 3DS that we had bought for my younger son to replace the one that he had "lost" which ended up being not lost, so now we had two. (Yes, I am rather fond of run-on sentences, although I am not as good at composing them as Lemony Snicket, who is an expert run-on sentence composer, unlike myself, who am not as good at it as he, Lemony Snicket, is.) ;)

I am proud to say that I resisted temptation and did not make a profit on this sale. We had originally bought the game for $100 and that is how much I sold it for tonight. So we came out even.

Money does not have a good track record as far as staying in my pocket is concerned. As I have posted previously, my first son really DID lose his Nintendo by taking it to school and having it stolen. So that one still has to be replaced, not to console my misbehaving son, but to spare the feelings of his grandparents, who gave him the game and would be very hurt to find out that he had taken such bad care of it.

So this $100 will go towards buying him a Nintendo that I may or may not forbid him to ever touch. :o)

Luckily, I have also managed to sell Daughter's horseback riding pants and boots, so the money for the second Nintendo, which should cost about $120 if the person selling it ever replies to my emails, has been secured.

I must say I will be relieved to have this whole episode behind us. I still remember how panicked I felt when I thought of telling my parents that the boys had lost their birthday gifts. Worse yet, I am still not sure that I dealt with this situation in the right way. I recognize that in essence I am shielding the boys from the consequences of their actions. Am I protecting them in order to spare my parents' feelings, or to hide the fact that I am an inadequate mother whose parenting skills are sorely lacking and whose sons disobeyed her and were not responsible enough with the expensive gifts that they received? Truth be told, it is a little of both. I would be ashamed to tell my parents what really happened. I am going to these great lengths to replace the Nintendo both for my boys' sakes and for mine.

Hopefully this chapter will soon be closed and I can get on with life, with a little less money in my pockets, but also minus some of the guilt.