My Little Pony is starting to become Mommy's Little NIGHTMARE!

It began innocently enough. I had had a decent collection of My Little Pony ponies when I was a child. I had a few favorites including the rare and hard to find Mint Dreams and Boysenberry Pie ponies. My younger sister had a beautiful pony by the name of Dancing Butterflies (a fancy pony that was yellow with butterflies everywhere, probably an ancestor to the current Fluttershy pony of generation 4). We had other ponies as well but like I said, it was a decent collection for that time, probably no more than 20 ponies. Then My Little Pony kind of disappeared and we grew out of them and slowly they just sort of disappeared. When Natalie was a baby, I happened to see that my older sister had a couple of ponies on hand and convinced her to give me one to give Natalie later on. She was around two when she got it and we found one at a garage sale and got her a few fakies (ponies that are not the brand labeled My Little Pony ponies). Before going to Korea, I had found a few more but then left all the actual My Little Pony ponies and took only the fake ones with to Korea. The other ponies were put away though, set in our locker and taken out over a year later and given to Natalie then. Her fifth birthday was fairly pony free. She had her small pony collection and that was that. However, not long after, we got cable which included The Hub, which aired a show called My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. An obsession was born. It still didn't really take off when she got a number of ponies for her sixth birthday. It was when her friend next door started collecting them that the trouble started. Then it became a full-on pony war. Now it's a battle to see who will have the most ponies and pony accessories. Current generation is the big draw with the crowning achievement being the wedding set that includes ponies Princess Cadence and Shining Armor. This is generation 4 or the ponies you see on the show that's featured on The Hub. Third generation ponies are another big draw as are generation 1 ponies (the ponies I grew up with back in the 1980's and early 1990's). Generation 2 ponies are hard to find and not exactly the most attractive as far as I'm concerned and to be honest, outside of the ones I had as a kid, it's generation 3 that draws my interest the most. Generation 4 ponies are pretty generic compared with past generations and the ones available are usually the same six ponies with some extra ones thrown in for variety. There's a limit to how many Rarities, Twilight Sparkles, Pinkie Pies, Rainbow Dashes, Apple Jacks, and Fluttershies one can have. Of course, try to tell that to my daughter and she'll just give you this look because um, NO, that's just not possible! Never mind that there's probably over 100 other ponies out there made in the previous generations. And then you have the little bitty ponies. These are about an inch or so long and made entirely of plastic and come in a non-see through bag (AKA blind bag). This naturally is a HUGE draw to a 6 year old, especially when said ponies are only $2 each (easy to afford for little girls dropping teeth everywhere for tooth fairy money). Sometimes, they're even put into see through packages and sold in stores for slightly less than the $2/each price. And with the holiday season going strong, there are few places you can go where you will NOT run into a My Little Pony (current or old!). Now, being the reasonable mother I am, I try not to go overboard when it comes to ponies and have done pretty well. Usually I find some good deals on them and get them that way (eBay is pretty dangerous when it comes to finding ponies, especially old ones and will likely trigger major toy nostalgia so be careful if you go that route!). Her aunt, my one older sister, on the other hand, has gone absolutely insane as far as finding pony paraphernalia. She has totally outdone me on the ponies this year and probably last year too since she not only has bought my daughter several ponies but even other pony items. The post Christmas Day (and birthday, since her birthday is two days after Christmas) comparison between two little neighbor girls will be BRUTAL! Every time my daughter or her friend gets a new pony, she has to show the other what she got before she even gets inside her apartment (they live literally next door to each other in the same building). It can get ugly! Sometimes there are tears. Sometimes there's stomping! The drama surrounding these ponies is INSANE!!! Which is why after this birthday, I'm DONE! No more ponies for Natalie! She'll have to get her pony fix from her aunt. Any ponies I buy will be for the younger daughter who is already going around and saying in the cutest little voice, "My Little Po-NY!" Will the nightmare ever end?!