Mini Entrepreneur

When Hubby was around eight, he changed his name from his given name to a nickname. In order to force his parents on board with this switch, he decided to charge them for every time they called him by his given name. So relentless was he that they finally adopted his nickname. I'm not sure how much money they actually lost in this process. Ah, a persuasive young entrepreneur at eight, and the man is still an entrepreneur. And the man is still called by his nickname by everyone he knows except his grandma.

Seems that Tadpole is following in his Daddy's footsteps.

First let me say that while I dislike clutter and chaos in the house, I have a terrible habit of leaving my shoes all over. Everyone probably has something they spend ridiculous amounts of time hunting down in their house - keys, a purse, wallets, their watch... mine is shoes.

Often times I'll find them hidden in the kids' closets, lurking in the little-used living room, peeking out from under bean bags in the playroom, etc. And I'm lucky if I find them both.

Tonight while corralling the kids into their respective rooms for bed, I couldn't locate Tadpole. I finally found him in the Fun Room (that's what we call the play room) with these on his little drawing table:

I'm the only girl in the house so I guess I can't say they are someone else's shoes. Figuring he was up to something funny and harmless, I gave him five minutes to get into bed, and left to go cuddle with Tigger.

He arrived in his top bunk with several white slips of paper, which he explained to me when I crawled up to say goodnight to him, were "tickets" that I would be receiving tomorrow.

"Mommy, you will get tickets and I am going to charge you for every shoe of yours I find."

As an aside, where does he get this? Sure, the boy has always been on the neat end of things and is rather organized, but he's FOUR. And you should see HIS room. Stuff all over, and certainly his shoes are not all paired and lined up in HIS closet. Hmmm.

He went on to tell me, "I am going to charge you a quarter for the first shoe. And the second. The third one will cost you a dime. The fourth one will cost you... what's another kind... um, a nickel. And all the rest will cost you a penny."

I'm quick at math, and I knew how many shoes he'd lined up already, so I was busy calculating how much I would be out when he added, "I don't really care if you give me round money or you pay in cash!"

Needless to say, before crawling into bed with my laptop tonight, I have cleared the house of all of my stray shoes.