Caden and Ethan get a fair bit of party packs from their classmates in school and I noticed the standard of their party packs have been 'upgraded' from simple titbits to stationery sets these days.
The most extravagant packs that Caden has received thus far were fairly good quality of angry bird's pencil case (coupled with angry bird pencils, ruler and eraser) and Ben 10 pencilcase and accompanying stationery. Caden had chucked his Ben 10 pencilcase which we bought for him last christmas and replaced it with the Angry bird pencilcase, although that Ben 10 case is still in good condition. After using it for barely a month, he asked to change his pencilcase again to the new Ben 10 one that he just got from one of the party packs over the weekend!! I told him to keep the new one in the storeroom and use it only when the Angry bird one is spoilt.
As usual, he started to turn naggy again.. and almost at the verge of whining.. (how do one like me be expected not to be blood boil???!)Pa Pa was nice enough to suggest Caden to give the almost new Angry Bird pencil case to Ethan so that he can switch to the new Ben 10 case. Ethan happily accepted and nothing drastic happened tonight (ie, no scolding, no caning).
They are then easily and happily retired into their bedroom without too much of a fuss. I was just thinking to myself, while I try to impart frugality value into them, I had to stand in their shoes and try to understand how they feel. Applying a similar situation to myself, it is just like getting a pair of Guess shoes last month and having a new pair of Nine West shoes this month and not being able to wait for my Guess shoes to wear off before I start wearing that pair of Nine West shoes! But then again, shoes are different from pencilcase - so much so of having double-standards on myself..
