Garage Saling

Today was a good day. We left the house late in the morning and did some heavy garage sale work. These are good days for the family. Relia is learning some lessons about having and spending money. This time it involved a small bear.
No, let me back up a bit. The first place we went to today was overpriced. They wanted to sell kids books for half price or so. Um, no. Not at a garage sale. Everything there was at least two bucks. That includes the toy cell phone that DF picked up.
He loves to work with phones and remote controls. Not a surprise, or at least I guess that most kids do. He has quickly learned that if mommy or daddy are on the phone that it is fun for him to talk too. His sister feels the same but moreso. It makes phone calls at our house interesting.
Anyway, DF found a toy cell phone there. It has brightly colored buttons. It talks about shapes. It plays little songs. He loves it.
And so does Relia. She was immediately jealous and wanted to play with it. In the car she would ask him nicely if she could use it. He gave his very sincere "noooo". We all cracked up. After some time he relented and they got into a routine where he would play for a bit and then she would make a request. He'd hand it over and soon have a regret. Then he'd fuss until she handed it back. The full cycle usually lasted about 45 seconds. (I'm not kidding about that.)
At the second sale Relia was very determined to find something to buy. Unfortunately this one was also a bit overpriced and the kid selection wasn't all that high. She picked out a small bear and made the most of loving it.
As soon as we got into the car she tried to trade it with DF. He didn't want to. And she was very upset. She quickly had buyer's remorse. Fortunately the next place had 'free' boxes. Problem solved. At this sale she picked out a small bouquet of flowers and got a basket for free. They both looked miserable to me but she was happy as could be.
Now it was time for DF to be disappointed. The batteries in his new phone started to fade. The ringing and singing became more faded and tinny. And then they stopped all together. We made promises that we could fix it later but of course he didn't understand that. Or maybe he did as he got over it and stopped crying.
The next sale was a win for me. We didn't know about this one; just stumbled upon it. (Here is a tip for modern garage sale throwers. Put your sale on Craigslist. Trust me on this.) Anyway, this sale wasn't big but it had the right geeky stuff. I bought a game called Shuttles (online version here) and a copy of Capote's 'True Blood'. All for a buck.
Relia got a small doll for a quarter.
When we got back in the car, DF decided that he was D-U-N, done. Lots of crying and wailing. It was almost time for his weekly visit with Nana so we shuffled things up and went over to the FP Gal's folks on our own. (Reports are that they had a good time.)
We got back in the car and decided we would do something a bit special. Relia suggested Davanni's and off we went. It is shocking how much easier it is to eat at a restaurant without a toddler. No crying, no cutting up food, no picking everything up off of the floor. Relia was a delight. I got some Coke Zero on tap.
After we were done the FP Gal sheepishly noted that we were close to Savers. We went and I scored big time. I got two games from the old 3M (yes, that 3M) bookshelf series. One game called 'Twixt' and one called 'Acquire'. Both are rather famous in the gaming world and now I have them.
Relia also scored a bit too. She got both 'Pocahontas' and 'Bambi'. She was very excited for the 'Thumper' movie. Somehow she knows about Thumper, but not about Bambi. Before we started it I warned her that there is a sad part in the movie. Then she badgered me to tell her what it was. I wouldn't spoil it for her. When it happened, she took it all in stride. Sometimes kids are stronger than we give them credit for.

As I said, it was a good day.