Ramblings on what led me to The Compact pt. 2

This cute little stuffed animal with Mary was what finally pushed me over the edge. For those of you without a 10 year old child, let me introduce you to a Webkinz. They are little stuffed animals that come with tags allowing you to register it on the computer at Webkinz world, where you can play games to earn webkinz bucks to feed your pets, clothe them, house them, etc. Mary currently has in excess of 25 Webkinz. At our house. She has more at her father's and at her grandma's. She regularly asks for a new Webkinz. This is her official last webkinz that she received on Easter morning. The first thing she wanted to do upon receiving "Ellen" was to register her on Webkinz world. Which I allowed her to do. I asked if I could see some of the rooms she had set up for her animals and started scrolling through her Webkinz account. It was then that I saw the page after page of registered Webkinz that she actually had. And the Webkinz people so kindly post next to each pet what was the last date they were actually "played" with online. Page after page of "December 2008", "November 2008", "July 2008", "April 2008"....it went on and on. Apparently once Mary receives a Webkinz, she plays with it online, then moves on to wanting a new one. Once she has it, it's no longer fun and she "needs" another one. Page after page of pets online that were bought because she had to have it that haven't been played with in months, in some cases in a year or more. Now let me back up a bit to last Friday. Mary had off of school and we decided to go shopping with Grandma. I spent a lot of money, mainly on Mary. I knew she needed new clothes for summer. We went to Abercrombie where she proceeded to pick out a new summer wardrobe. Yesterday, I walked into her bedroom and the clothes are still sat. In the bag. Untouched. There are a pile of books on her bedside table. Books she had to have....unread. Our basement is literally loaded with toys and games that have rarely, if ever, been played with. I packed up a bag of clothing to be donated to charity last week. Many of the clothes had tags still on them. The family got a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas. Wii Fit has been played with maybe three times since December. Between Russ and Mary, the Wii gets played with maybe one time per week. My husband bought me an iPod Touch for Christmas. I used it a lot at first, but have barely touched it in at least 2 months. My two year old plays games on it. WHAT?! That cost well over $200. What are we doing? What are we thinking? We think we are doing well because we have some savings and no debt. But what are we teaching our kids? We don't value the things we have because we have too much. Want something? Just go get it. It's time to use up, wear out, make do, or do without. It's time to spend more time as a family DOING and less time buying.