Bought . . . 1) disc shooter for Ben; 2) a book for Michal yesterday. Bought no new things today (thank goodness, after the crashing fall of yesterday).
The book is easier to explain than the disc shooter. Michal lost a book she borrowed from a friend before our 4(!) moves during the renovation. We turned the house upside down looking for it (her friend wanted it back), tried to find it secondhand, and then finally capitulated to buying it (by following the "we won't inconvenience other people too too much" rule).
As I wrote in my last post, Ben begged and begged for a disc shooter the other day. I said no. He pulled himself together (uncharacteristically) despite his huge disappointment and we left the store. The next morning we woke up and Ben asked me why I was smiling and I said, "why not be happy, it's a new day" or something mundane like that. And he said, "why should I be happy? I don't have a disc shooter," in a glum little voice. And I thought about it and remembered that weekend his teacher had dropped by our house when we were out and left a note telling us how well Ben is doing in school and that he had just mastered a really difficult math strategy that he'd been working on all year; and then I thought of how unfair Ben had thought it was that Michal got new sandals but that he'd been okay with that; and then I thought he'd been pretty good (for him) in the store the other day (that is, he really really tried to get over his disappointment); and then I thought, okay, we'll break this rule this one time. I told him all of this and he was thrilled. The delight on his face with that disc shooter was worth breaking a million rules (but its worth noting that he would never have been as delighted if he hadn't had no-more-new-things, or any expectation of new things, these past two months). So that's the explanation. I probably shouldn't have done it but . . .
Oddly, after a complete evaporation of my desire for anything new, I am wanting a new summer dress these days. I'm not sure where that's coming from and I'm surprised by it. But I've noted it ever since the hot weather began and I looked in my closet and everything felt a bit old and boring and unappealing. With the exception of the bike in the window close to when we first began, it's my *first* strong desire for a new thing (just when I thought all such desires were gone for good and I'd never buy a new thing again!)
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Some new things one buys (like Mihal's new book to replace the lost one) are for the benefit of others. Some of them are (mostly) for your own pleasure and to the detriment of other (disk shooters?). In the middle, I'd say, are new summer dresses which are for the benefit of both the wearer and the observer.
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