Value of a dollar.

With the current state of our economy hovering somewhere around the proverbial toilet, I have to wonder what my two year old is picking up from all the recent news on television. As educational Disney Channel "might" be, I can only take so much before I'm bouncing around my kitchen singing the theme song to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Once that happens, I draw the line and turn on something else to drown out "OH TOODLES!" Recently, Cole has been obsessed with money--coins to be exact. He'll find a penny on the floor, and proceed to play with it (don't worry Mom, he just likes to put it in the back of his car and drive it around) or he likes to put them in his piggy bank. However, his obsession has started to become "criminal." The other day I caught him taking the loose change out of my wallet and counting it. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me "I want money!" What?!? Well honey, Mommy wants money too, but we don't go around taking money out of peoples purses (does he have a future in government, or what? HAHA)

Last night after we put Cole to bed at 8pm, he did his normal "get out of bed 5 times asking for random things so I can delay my bedtime as long as possible" dance. Normally he asks for water, cars, trucks, his bear, and the occasional Post It?? However, last night after being in bed for nearly 45 minutes he came out into the living room and very nicely said,

"Mommy, I want money!"

I told him that he could not have money in his bed, and that he needed to go to sleep.

"Mommy, money---Please!"

Again, I told him that he was not allowed to have money in his bed and proceeded to walk him back to his room.

"MOMMY---MONEY!!"

Looking at the clock it was nearly 9pm, and decided that this was a battle that I was not going to win. I remembered that I had a dollar in my back pocket so I pulled it out and handed it to him. Yes, I just paid my child to go to sleep...and you know what, it worked. Later on when I went to check on him before I went to sleep, I started to clean up the pile of cars, trucks and post it's from his bed. Right next to his hand was the dollar I had bribed him with. So I did what any loving mother would do in this situation. I picked it up, and stuck it in my back pocket--Something tells me I'm going to need to recycle it for tonight's bedtime routine.