Sometimes learning to change is hard...

As much as I've changed my ways, some things still stay the same.  I often look to buying something as a way to solve problems, as if a new purchase is magically going to change the cause of conflict.

Take our meal time dilemma with the kids, for instance.  Every meal, the kids fight over what colour plate they want.  I randomly pick out a plate from the cupboard and one of the boys will shout "I want the green one!" and then all of the sudden the other boy wants the green one, probably for the sole reason that they can't have it.  Then the argument is repeated with the cup that they get.  And this happens EVERY.SINGLE.MEAL.

Now it would seem that there would be a simple solution for this - just ask the darn kids what colour they want, right?  Of course that's not where my mind goes.  My mind thinks, "I should let the kids go and pick out a special plate set!  Then they'll be excited about it every single meal and they won't fight any more!"  Thinking I'm quite brilliant I call Nick to say, "Hey!  I got a great idea!"

It must be hard to be Nick some days and be the voice of reason to my insanity.  He just sighs and says, "Why can't we just use the plates we have and get them to pick a colour?  You don't need to buy new dishes."  After much poising my ineffective arguments to him, I'm forced to agree with him.  We don't need new dishes.

Some days I'm still really struggling with this need vs. want thing.