$$MONEY$$

I have never been very good at following through with allowances. I never have cash on hand, which makes it difficult to hand out at the end of the week. I keep telling myself I'm going to get better at it, but it never seems to happen. The kids really aren't that great at doing their chores faithfully either, so I guess it all works out in the end. This past week I started keeping a list of the different chores the kids do around the house and thought maybe that would work better for me to keep track of that way, and then I know how much I should pay them and I have an incentive to have some cash on hand. Today was payday. The kids had a few chores on the list that they did, Emma more than Gage, and I gave them each $1. (I know, I know.....big whoop!)After I gave each of them their dollar, the next half hour went like this. Emma gets out her little zippered coin purse that Grandma Pipi sent her and decides to count all of her money. She has a whole $6.60. Gage then goes to his room to get his wallet. He has $3. Gage decides to get mad and pout about it. I told him I had the 6 cents he found in the parking lot the other day and gave it to him. He sighs and says, "That's not enough!" Apparently there is a toy he wants to buy that is $10. I guess he thought that by sitting around and whining it would make me just want to hand out more money? I told Gage that I would give him a little more money if he would clear his junk off of the table. He stomps off to his room. Emma starts clearing her stuff off the table, so I grab a few coins from my can and she adds it to her stash. She proceeded to clear Gage's stuff off of the table too. Then she said that she had picked up dog poop in the backyard the other day and never got paid for it. I told her that if she went out there to pick it up again today I would give her some more money. She was having troubles finding the piles, so I had to go out and point them out to her. There were more than she thought there would be. She earned herself another dollar. She was thrilled. So was I!

We went about our day. It was pretty uneventful. There was a dinner tonight with the Duck Factory people and wives were invited. When I went upstairs this afternoon to take a bath, I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into my bedroom. The bed was made (which I hadn't done), my pajamas were laid out very nicely on the bed and there was a note on my pillow that said, "I mad your bed. Love, Emma". She had also put a lilac that she had picked from the trees out back next to the note, along with 3 pencil erasers. :-) The pencil erasers were my favorite part of the whole surprise. Just one of the little things that makes Emma Emma, and I love her for that. What a little sweetheart. :-)