The Value of Money

On the way home today, Wyatt said, "Mommy, you know how chocolate is my favorite candy? Well, I accidentally ate the Hershey kiss off Zoe's cookie, today." [Wyatt and his friend, Thomas, made cookies with Poppa this weekend, which he then brought in for Show & Tell and to share with the class--and to get them out of the house!!! ] It seems that Zoe, for some strange reason, didn't appreciate a peanut butter blossom cookie with the chocolate picked off. We decided that he ate the chocolate on purpose but that he made her feel bad on accident. And he thought that getting her some new chocolate to go with an apology card would be a good route toward redemption.

Not wanting to let a "teachable moment" slide, I took him to Wegmans. On the way there, he picked three empty soda bottles out from under the kids' seats--okay, I realize we missed the "teachable moment" of keeping the car clean. Baby steps, people. We brought the bottles to the return machine and it duly spit out the little receipt. He said, "It's broken, this isn't money!" Urgh...does every moment have to be a teaching moment?

We dashed to the bulk food aisle and picked out 5 Hershey kisses (just in case any "accidentally" disappeared on the way) and weighed it on the scale--8 cents. Perfect, now he would even get a little change back from the 15 cents he "earned" on bottle returns. After getting all rung up, we started for the door, his fist tightly closed around two pennies and a nickel.

Wyatt suddenly stopped and dashed over to the Coinstar machine. "Turn your change into cash," he read aloud. "Sweet!! I want to give it my money and get three dollars!" The nearby store manager thought it was hilarious, but she wasn't the one dragging him away from the machine. I'm teachable momented out at the moment!