"Unlimited" is a Bad Word.

We took the kids to Olivia's fall festival at her school this past Saturday.

They have games, crafts, treats and about 5 different big blow up bounce house-type things. It's a lot of fun and very exciting for the kids.

When you go you can either buy tickets to pay for all these things or you can buy a wrist band for "unlimited access" to everything.

As I sat there at the table thinking about what I was going to get I thought through everything available in my mind and felt like "unlimited" wasn't such a good idea, so I opted for the tickets.

As we went throughout the day it was confirmed to me that the tickets were a great idea--this was a day my kids would learn value when others did not. (Please don't think I'm judging you if your kid had a wrist band. It's just that, well...maybe I am. :) )

Before I even got the tickets the kids were playing on the playground, happy as could be and didn't even know the bounce houses existed. They could have enjoyed playing there all day. I got the tickets and explained to everyone how many we had and what we could do with what we had. Everyone could pick one or two bounce houses to go on and then have some tickets left to play a few games and get a treat or do a craft.

They all thought about it, looked at all the different bounce house options, and picked where they wanted to go. As I watched kids with wristbands go in and out of the bounce houses, they only seemed to 1/2 enjoy themselves while my kids were ECSTATIC to be inside and enjoyed every minute. They knew they had used their precious tickets to get in there and it meant something to them.

After that we played games at the game booths and did the same thing....look, decide, play. Other kids ran from one booth to another without even really enjoying themselves because the lure of the next game booth was already calling to them. They could play them all so none of them had any real value.

I know I'm way up high here on my soap box right now, but sometimes I have a really hard time with this "unlimited world" full of instant gratification and everybody wanting more. The more we get the less satisfied we feel. It's not just our kids, it's us too.

I think it's more important now than ever to teach boundaries and value and to live that way too. It's hard to do because we want our kids to have everything, but what we don't realize is when we do that they lose the most important stuff along the way.

I want my kids to have character and morals.

That's what matters.