The Fruits of Novan's Labor

"We don't have enough money for that." is a phrase that Novan has heard a lot and after telling it to him for the longest time I have really wanted to show him exactly what money is. I thought about just giving him a weekly allowance of a dollar or something but I'm afraid Novan's concept of time is still skewed and he'd be asking me every day for money because he doesn't really know what a week means. Further, it wouldn't really teach him that money has to be earned. Then one day when we went to a book store and he of course had to hear the no money sob story again as to why he couldn't get something he actually finally asked "Can I get some money?" Finally, he was starting to get it and I knew he was ready to start to understand how money works. About the same time I was fed up with changing poopy pull-ups in the morning I decided to have Novan earn his money by giving him a quarter every day that he would not poop in his pull-up. While it has not eliminated the behavior completely it has certainly diminished its occurence on a grand scale. In the past 4 or 5 weeks he has probably only pooped in his pull-up 4 times vs. the every other day that I was previously dealing with.

So after weeks of earning quarters and on occasion a quarter here or there to clean his room he had finally earned $6.50 which I informed him would be enough to buy a small toy. So last night I took him to Wal-Mart after Iyov went to bed and Brad stayed home with him and Beya. He was so excited. We grabbed his money jar and stuffed his pockets with his quarters and few dollars that I had changed out over the weeks for quarters because well, I don't generally keep $6 in quarters lying around. When we got to the toy section he took his time examining each toy that interested him. He was so good even when he would choose something that was way over his budget as I would say "You don't have enough money for that" and then I would show him the toys that he did have enough money for. He had really had his heart set on a "gold" star wars battle droid he had seen online but Wal-Mart of course was out of all the good action figures and while I could have ordered it online I really wanted him to have his first purchasing experience in the store where he could physically hand over his money in exchange for something he wanted.

He actually settled on something much quicker than I had expected. I was so impressed that he was grasping the concept of "enough money". So he picked out a transformer that was actually under budget.

Then I said, "Novan, Beya will probably be sad if we don't get her something also, should we get something for her?" "Yes!" he said and I led him to the "girly" aisle where he would pick certain things and I would say whether it was too much money. I pointed to some little fairies and Novan picked a Tinkerbell out. He was so excited to give it to her. When we went to the register he just put all his money on the counter of course but wasn't all that interested in helping me count it out. Oh well. In any case, he was so good and so cooperative.

So when we got home we gave Beya her toy which she gave her customary, "OOOOOOOOOOOH!" when she is excited. The unfortunate part was that they stayed up later playing in their room. AND I woke up at 3:45 because I could hear Beya out in the living room and could see that the lights were on. Apparently she was too excited to sleep. I don't actually think they went to sleep because Brad went to put them back in bed at 5. Gotta love the excitement of children! Novan is already asking me if he can earn more money so I am very pleased with his experience.