Three Dollars

This weekend was the Big Three, a weekend-long swap meet that’s home to all things car and a lot of really cool non-car-related stuff, too. My dad has been going to the Big Three since I was a kid. I hadn’t ever been until after Mike and I got together. Now we go every year and take Michaela. It’s a blast! We walk until our feet want to fall off, look at the old cars (ranging from hunks of junk to beautifully resorted collectors items) and parts, eat hot dogs and, in my case, talk to guys who have known me since I was in utero. It’s really fun to take Michaela now. My dad dotes on her so, and she loves getting to spend time with grandpa. She kept telling us  “You can go walk around. I’ll stay here with Grandpa!”

This year, I gave Michaela a whopping three dollars and told her she could spend them however she wanted. I turned it into a chance to practice our math (“If you have $3 and spend $1, how much will you have left?”), to talk about the importance of really thinking about purchases (“If you spend all your money on that toy, you won’t have any left. Are you sure you want to buy that?”), and to talk about responsibility (“Which pocket do you think you should put that money in, to make sure it doesn’t get lost?”).

She was so funny. At first, she wanted to buy everything she saw. Then she started to figure out that some things actually cost a lot of money– more than she had. In the end, Michaela bought one little toy for .25 and put the other $2.75 in her piggy bank. Then she wanted to give people her money: we stopped at an open house on our way home and Michaela offered the agent a dollar, just because. I think the money was, as the expression goes, burning a hole in her pocket.

I love teachable moments like these!