Learning by Parenting

Hello, dear blog readers! I have found that since I've become a parent, I often find myself (re)learning life's lessons as often as I am trying to teach them to The Toddlers in our house.

For example, we took Lemmy's "commission" (AKA "allowance") money to the store to start teaching him that the green paper bills are finite. I was thoroughly pleased with him for spying colored pencils that are meant for kids his age. Frankly, they don't leave a waxy residue like crayons on the furniture.

We went through the store and I had him hand the clerk his few dollars. I was explaining to him that he just bought his pencils when I looked at the box and realized that there was only *ONE* pencil left in the box. Of course I started looking around on the floor thinking that Lem had emptied all of his wares.

Lesson 1 that came to mind right then: don't let your kids play with things at the store. Wait 'til you get home or in the car.

Lesson 2: Wait until you get home or in the car to lecture your child about losing his or her toy. As it turned out, when the clerk put the pencils in our grocery bag, most of them came out of the box. It turned out to NOT be the fault of Lem.

After all is said and done, we have a little boy who is thrilled to have some colors and some scratch paper.