Daylight Dollars

I may regret this.  You would think I would learn, especially after the twelve day period that I just went through, but here I go again.

Haley is a shopper.  She loves to shop.  She loves clothes. She doesn't seem to think that she can get to a point where she has enough clothes.  She is always on the search for that elusive special shirt that she just can't live without.

I needed to go to the mall on Sunday.  Haley's Dad was not home and Haley's Big Sis needed to go with me (we were returning a video game and it was apparently urgent.)  So I had to take Haley.  I tried to explain to her before we left what we would be doing.  We were going to a specific store within the mall and that would be the only store we were going in to.  We were not going to go to another store.  We were not going to buy anything.

We had just been to a store a couple of days earlier (for Haley's Big Sis) and Haley walked out of it with a big bag.  I am so weak.

Anyway, it didn't matter what I said before, during or after.  Haley was upset that she didn't get to buy anything.

Later on that day she was looking at her Historic Rail catalog and she saw a t-shirt with the Daylight steam engine on it.  It is black and it looks like the white steam and other white parts of the shirt might glow in the dark, much like the 700 shirt she already has.  I told her that. 

"Haley, it's just like the one you have with the 700 on it."

"Daylight."

Oh, right.  It is different.  My bad.

She is starting to get the concept of money.  She knows that she needs money if she is going to the mall with her class.  She knows Mom puts money in her wallet when she needs it.  She knows if there are numbers next to something in a JCPenney's ad it means - money. 

She pointed to the picture of the t-shirt in the catalog and said "Money."  I told her that it was fifteen dollars.

Then I got an idea.  What if I had her do some chores to earn the money.  I had already asked her to pick up her videos and put them away (and she hadn't done it.)  I thought that if she had some incentive she just might.  I asked her if she wanted to buy the shirt.  She said "Yeah."  I told her that she needed fifteen dollars.  I told her that if she picked up her videos and put them in the cabinet I would give her one dollar.  I said "Would you pick up your videos for one dollar?"  She said "Yeah."  She bent down and picked up her entire stack of videos and headed for the cabinet.  I could see disaster all over that, I watched her take a few steps and put them on the ottoman.

I realized I was going to have to be more specific.  I showed her how to stack each one on the table by the cabinet and then I showed her how to put each one in the cabinet.  I walked away.  It must be noted that both her Dad and her Big Sis were witnesses to this whole thing, they were not much help though.  Haley's Dad made a comment about how she was doing and I looked over to see her stacking all of the videos up too high.  I had to come back and show her how to make them fit within the cabinet.  When she was all done I said "Good Job!" and I showed her the chart on the fridge that I had quickly made on a white board.  I showed her the fifteen squares and then I filled one in.  She was excited.

Since then she has put away all of her toys and helped me empty the dishwasher.  I am going to have to think of more things for her to do.  She doesn't like to wait so she will want to move this along.  She is already eyeing a video on the same page that is 30 dollars. 

She is very excited about earning her dollars though, she started calling them Daylight Dollars.  I thought it was appropriate.