For the love of eBay

DOM is less than a month away from turning two. Hair pulling about how quickly she is growing up aside, we are faced with the birthday present dilemma: how do we buy her a ton of presents without spoiling her? I'm justifying this year's spending spree by doing most of my shopping on eBay - at least that way I'm not paying full retail.

It's no secret that a two-year-old has an attention span shorter than that of a housefly. The most thrilling thing about the birthday party for her is going to be a cake and ice cream and lots of paper to tear. That there will be some neat and interesting new toys will just be icing on the cake (pun intended, sorry). She will be excited...for about two minutes, or the average amount of time it will take to open the box and get the toy ready for play. Then the toy will be discarded on to the rapidly growing pile of primary-colored plastic lining the walls of her room or our rec room.

So, you say, why buy her lots of toys if she really doesn't care or won't miss them. And I respond to you...I dunno. It's a compulsion, really. I see all this cool stuff that I think I would like and I think to myself that maybe, just maybe that is going to be the toy that captures her imagination and keeps her occupied for hours on end.

Dreams are nice. But they're getting expensive.