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Sunday, September 11, 2011

I'm not sure what this full van says about me....

One of my annoying habits is that I do things waaaaaay in advance of when they actually need to be done. I was always the student who started her long-term project the night it was assigned and usually had it completed eons before anyone else.

I try, when possible, to purchase gently used clothes and toys for the kids.  The truth is that most kids simply love new-to-them stuff whether it comes in a brand new box or in a big brown paper bag.  N is starting to get to the age where she can differentiate between brand-spanding new or used, but the boys definitely can't.

With this in mind, I occasionally check craigslist.com to see if anyone is selling items that I think the kids would like for their birthdays or Christmas.  For M's upcoming 2nd birthday, I found some Thomas the Train trains and track through craigslist and paid $20 for 2 trains and numerous track pieces, including a bridge.

The boys really like the GeoTrax toys that we have in the basement.  A couple years ago I bought G the airplane track, and I think I paid between $35 and $40 new for it.  Last week I decided to look on craiglist for GeoTrax items and found someone selling over 250 pieces (track, trains and buildings) for $100.  Since I really didn't want that much, I emailed her and asked if I could just buy a few items.

She replied and basically begged me to take them out of her house.  I figured that for $100, I could give both G and M pieces of it for Christmas 2011 and then save some for M's 3rd birthday (yes, this is a year from October).

I trekked over to her house and managed to cram 4 containers full of GeoTrax items into my van.  Among the items were the GeoTrax Grand Central Station, Remote Control Alpine and Will, Working Town Train & Railway Set, and GeoTrax City Lights Super Set.  (There are at least 4 more that I didn't list.)

The van was chock full o'toys, but what made getting the GeoTrax in such a difficulty is that also in the van were 106 items tagged and ready to be left at the local kids' consignment sale where I was headed after picking up the GeoTrax.

How insane is it for me to purchase $100 worth of stuff while trying to get rid of stuff???????

I am a little disappointed in myself since this just seems like something someone on a reality show would do, but I prefer to buy gently used, and I have found it can be very difficult to find certain popular items like Thomas the Train, GeoTrax and Disney Cars items.  

Motherhood is being in a perpetual state of buying, storing and selling/donating.  

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