Plus, he's now pretty clear on the fact that one needs money to purchase the things one wants. Up until recently, the only actual enjoyment Finn got from money at a store was when I took him to cash in ten years worth of pocket change at the grocery store Coinstar machine. Unfortunately for him, all he got out of that was a crash course in infectious disease, since those machines are disgusting. But now that I'm regularly using the "I don't have any money" excuse whenever Finn senses that we have come within 10 miles of a toy store, he's starting to realize that money might actually be something that he wants to get his hands on.
So last weekend was a big event for Finn. After scrounging up all of the shrapnel/coins that were laying around the living room, he used "his" money to buy something that he wanted at the store. We dug through all of the coins before we went, sorting them out by type and value. Somehow a 2 Euro coin had gotten into the mix and I had to explain that those didn't work here. He looked at it in disgust and told me to, "Take it back to Europe." I was so proud.
Once we got to the store, we had to figure out how we were going to spend the three dollars we had scrounged up. He initially wanted a case of ice cream bars, but those were six dollars. He then wanted a case of cupcakes, but again he was short. Eventually, we were able to find a single cupcake in his price range and we let him bring it to the cashier and pay for it out of his "wallet", which is a lovely - and very dirty - Ziploc bag.
Now that we've got the exchange-of-money-for-goods thing down, the next step is to teach him the sense of reward that comes from using your money to buy things for other people. Not interested in wasting any time, I started that lesson last weekend as well, when I made him buy me a cupcake.
I hope all lessons are that delicious.
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The picture above is from the Boeing Museum of Flight, which Finn and I also hit last weekend with Archer & Cyrus. That's a shot from inside the Concorde that they have on display there. As you can see, it's not very big and they don't trust anyone to actually sit on the seats. This is in contrast to the gift shop, which is enormous and which they have no problem putting all purchasable items directly within a child's reach.
The place was packed and I lost Finn momentarily. As I was frantically searching for him, I could barely hear his little voice repeating "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." This only made me more frantic, until I almost tripped over him, sitting on the floor, checking out a Lego airport set. He looked up at me and in a very unconcerned voice asked, "Can you buy this for me?"
I think it's time for another cupcake lesson.
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