picture me {im}perfectly. White Elephants

Two nights ago the boys and I were headed to scouts and we needed to make a quick stop by Walgreens to pick up a white elephant gift for J. I let him run in by himself, and use $5 of his own money to pick the gift, something that I never do, but I was hoping it would give him a little since of freedom, and help him to get a little more excited about his white elephant exchange.

J hops in the truck all excited to show me what he had decided upon, he had gotten 2 boxes of candy canes and a very large chocolate coin.

The FIRST thing out of my mouth was. . ."J, that isn't fair trade chocolate, why in the world would you knowingly buy chocolate that wasn't fair traded?"

He replied sheepishly that he had thought about it, but he wanted to get something that he knew the other boys would really like and he knows everybody loves candy, and with $5 to spend and at Walgreens no less, he didn't have much option. He hung his head. . .

Why in the world did I do that, I mean to ease into it would have been one thing, but to jump right into the negative. . . wow. Mommy FAIL.

We have since cuddled and talked about how I made him feel, and I have apologized for the way that I handled that situation, but that was a big moment for him, and I took the spotlight away with my negative comment.

Has this ever happened to you? How did you handle it?