It all started with a hermit crab

Kaity begged for a hermit crab for her birthday, which was last month. She'd seen the pretty painted shells at a vendor in the mall. That request was repeated any time anyone said anything about her birthday. So Gaylen took her to a pet store. He continues to prove his wisdom! There the shells are not painted and the crabs are in a regular looking aquarium, not a cute, colorful plastic container. The whole time they were in the pet store "just looking around" (you see he's wise and sneaky) the hermit crab didn't move. Problem solved, right? NO
After rejecting such a boring pet Kaity began obsessing with the guinea pigs. Yes very cute, but they are very similar to hamsters in my eyes. (About 6 years ago we had dwarf hamsters that we purchased, not knowing one was pregnant, from a pet store for Charles. Before we got rid of them the last hamster count was 35! Yes 35. Not a fun experience.) At the pet store Charles also found a pet he wanted; a bearded dragon lizard.
Now I'm all for pets. I had cats and dogs when I was a kid. I loved having the iguana that we rescued three years ago. I liked the parakeet that we had. I love our dog. I even liked the hamsters (up until there were more than 15 of them). However there are some issues I was having with adding two more pets to the full house we have right now.
The solution: have the kids save up the money to buy the pets and supplies themselves. That was another bit of wisdom from the mouth of my husband. They saved and worked and were getting dangerously close to having enough money for their pets. But you know how money is, you start thinking of all those plastic toys you can buy. It's almost like it is burning a hole in your pocket. Especially when mom suggests we go to Toys R Us. You should have heard the rationalizations "you know if we have a pet we have to clean up after it," Kaity said, "and we'd still have to clean our room." I nodded, "Yes you would." Her blue eyes were all seriousness, "and that would be alot of work."
I'm optimistically chalking this up to a lesson about money!