First Ever Allowance and the Yellow

I had never intended to give A-chan an allowance at so young an age, it was entirely out of the blue. It happened like this:
As she and I were driving downtown to have lunch with my mother, she wanted to know why her Dada wasn't comin along. I tried explaining the concept of work and work hours, bosses and paychecks in as simple terms as I could come up with. It was a rather good conversation, I thought and she seemed to be understanding it until I got to the end of the explanation and she repeated her question.

Hmmm, went I, none of that sank in. What to do? That afternoon the opportunity presented itself for an arrangement that might provide a tidbit of reference for her. As I cleaned the house in preparation for guests in the evening, I noticed a whole lot of toys scattered about and requested that she help put them away. As she complied I talked about work and the meaning of work and the fact that if she did her 'work' of picking up her toys that afternoon she would be rewarded with money.

Surprisingly she got very excited and hurried to clean her toys and did a fantastic bang-up job of it, impressing us to no end. Since we didn't have the $5 cash on hand for her allowance I made up an IOU and put it next to the door to redeem the next time we went out. She enjoyed making the IOU and signing it very much. Even better, she really seems to get the concept of work and such a little.

I really thought that she would spend her allowance at the Renaissance Festival, but she ended up keeping it until our trip to Austin, TX and an outing to Terra Toys. If you ever get the chance, definately go there. It's an awesome toy store! What's interesting is that A-chan seemed to have a color theme for her allowance spending. The three things that she purchased were all the same color of yellow. A smiley face ball, a pair of training chop sticks with elephant on top, and a yellow magnifyin glass. Neither of the other two have been played with much, but the magnifying glass has been a huge hit.