DC has his list for Santa posted on the refrigerator:

Bandaids
18 Markers
White Paper
A Christmas Story Live DVD
Dolls

We are away for the Thanksgiving weekend. As always, on the day after Thanksgiving, we visit his favorite shops in the area.

In one shop, DC asked to buy markers. We have been trying to limit his sharpie shopping to the dollar store since he would and could buy 18 markers every week and that, along with his bandaid obsession gets expensive.
Since he was not having much luck finding a certain nutcracker book that he wanted, I told him that he could buy the markers. They were not your average sharpie, so they were a little pricey.

On the way to the register DC mentioned “Santa List”.
I was looking around wondering where he was seeing a Santa List.

Me: Where’s the Santa List?

DC: On the Re-fridge-a-later’

Me: Oh! The List at home?

DC: Yes, 18 markers.

So really, right here, I was not being sarcastic or kidding with him; I really thought he was telling me that we could take the 18 markers off of his list at home since he was buying them then. Which, I admit was not something I expected DC to say.

Me: Oh, so we can take the markers off of your Santa List at home?

DC: No! Buy markers and keep 18 markers from Santa on ‘re-fridge-a-later’ at home.

He was bargaining to get these new markers and keep the 18 markers on his list at home.

First it never occurred to me that he would even think that this one purchase would cancel out his Christmas list entry. I mean, he gets markers and some of the other items in his list on a regular basis throughout the year.

It was also different that he thought about MAKING SURE he would still receive the “list markers” if he bought the markers he had in his hand.

I laughed and told him it was fine. The lady at the counter laughed too.

Bargaining over – he bought his markers.

Later that day, we stopped quickly at a Dollar store.
Every trip to the Dollar store in DC’s mind, means markers and bandaids.
He bought one red sharpie and two boxes of bandaids. There was no questioning his list and he was not worried about bandaids being removed from said  list.

Jokingly due to the marker negotiations earlier I asked:

“Does this mean we will change the markers on your list from 18 to 17?”

DC: Yes!

????

I told him I was just joking but he stuck to his deal.

Since buying the one red sharpie, whenever he mentions his Christmas list and the items on that list (which is often), he lists 17 markers instead of 18.

Was the negotiation all about the fact that the package of markers he wanted were not actual “sharpies” and he wanted to be sure that he would still receive 18 sharpies?

I don’t know.

But it IS new that he understood a negotiation.

There are time when I do negotiate with him or try to have him make a choice:

“You can order dessert but you can’t have a snack on top of that when you get home”

He says okay and then seems shocked when I say “no” to a snack when he asks for one later.

Maybe this means he is beginning to “get” making choices other than what color shirt he wants to wear or something like that?

We’ll see if this is the case the next time he has to choose between dessert and a snack.

Just for the record… I am sure that the sharpies he wants come in a package of 18.

Just like when he begs to get “just one” sharpie in the grocery store when he knows that the particular store we shop in does not carry single sharpies. He knows he will end up with at least a three-pack.

He knows what he’s doing…

***

Edited to add: After writing this post (on my phone, so pardon the typos), we went to ride the Santa Train, where DC writes (another version) and mails his list to Santa.

He wrote 17 markers.

The very first thing he did when we arrived home from our weekend away was to edit his “refrigerator list from 18 to 17 markers.