About a year ago Ben became pretty intrigued by the concept of money. He realized that money bought things, and he likes things. Over the next few months he became our budding entrepreneur, and even purchased his first velcro wallet at Goodwill for .99. The boy has style. He has tried many tactics: He tried to convince us that there is a book fairy, that will leave you money if you put one of your books under your pillow at night. He used Elmers glue to paste together pieces of scrap wood to sell to the neighbors (that's another story). He painted pictures I thought were for the refrigerator but turns out he thought they might sell on Craigslist (he's not lacking in self-confidence).
That brings me to a couple months ago. He helped Dave in the garage using the shop-vac for about 2 hours. He worked hard, and never complained. So Dave paid him a couple dollars. Cha-Ching! All the sudden, he wanted to help with everything. Hmmmm.... So, I gave him the talk about normal chores we do every day, and extra ones that come along every now and then. You don't get paid for picking up your toys, dude. He seemed a little bummed out by this slap in the face of reality, but I was pretty sure he understood.
A couple nights ago I asked him to help me unload the dishwasher. About halfway through he said, "Don't worry mom, I'm not gonna charge you for this because this is just part of being in a family." Whew, glad he let me off the hook on that one.....
