Santa

As my husband parked our blue mini van at the local farm store, I explained the plan. "I'll distract them with the go carts, you go get the cat food, and we'll meet back up at the front."

My husband rolled his eyes like we don't need a strategy for taking our four little kids into the farm store. Last time our 2-year old was climbing all over the sacks of feed like a jungle gym, while my 5-year became obsessed with a $100 carpeted cat house. He tried to carry it around the store with us all the while pleading his case for the farm cats.

As soon as we walked through the sliding glass doors, the kids ran to the yellow and red go carts. The boys immediately hopped into the driver's seat, twisted the wheel, and gurgled out engine noise. My daughter walked past the go carts and climbed onto the seat of a mini bike. As I watched her grab the handle bars and crank the throttle, I thought, "Everything they drive will have a roll bar."

Upgrade the battery powered tractor

I was giving a polite smile to another stranger that remarked how I had my hands full, when my husband took the car seat with our 5-month old son out of my hands. He secured it to the red cart with the cat food signaling towards the exit. I told the kids we had to leave and no one moved. I just kept walking beside the cart and said goodbye to my three Rugrats. They quickly ran to catch up to us.

The drive home was 15 minutes of my sons trying to convince us to get a go cart. We explained that it was too much money, and more money than they had in their piggy banks. Then they started thinking of jobs they could do to earn money just like Curious George did to buy a kite.

The following week was spend brainstorming money making ventures for my 5 and 6-year old. This was quite a challenge, but raking leaves and picking up walnuts were among the ideas.  However, my 6-year old found a loop hole.

"I don't want to buy a go cart, I want Santa to bring it. That would be much easier." He said this while we were laying around on the couch watching TV.

Our entire plan of teaching the kids about hard work and the value of a dollar went right down the drain faster than Santa can guzzle milk. Their earning potential was so small that it would have taken them years to save enough and by then they would be old enough to be thinking of a vehicle instead of a go cart. Our carefully planned plot was short lived all because of a fat man in red.

My husband told the kids that Santa doesn't usually bring really big gifts, but I knew that was going to lead to a lot of questions that I didn't want to answer. Luckily, it was time for bed when the Santa conversation started.

My plan is to keep pushing the work ethic on them and go to the farm store without them.

If you have suggestions, send them our way.