Funny milestone

Jack had kind of a funny milestone today.  He made his first purchase with his own money.

We haven't really started giving Jack a regular allowance, but somehow he had managed to amass a little stash of money through gifts and (I suspect) bribes from his father to which I have not been a party.  The only time he had ever spent his money was about a year ago, when he gave it all to our church's Second Mile Giving ministry.  He politely declined when we asked if he wanted to repeat this act of generosity this year.

As I mentioned in my last post, he has recently become very interested in Legos.  He has been agitating for us to get him another little Lego guy (his helicopter and fire engine sets each came with a police figure and fire fighter figure, respectively).  As I also mentioned in my last post, he has been crying and throwing tantrums a lot more lately.  We agreed to get him a Lego guy if he could go a full week without crying even once. Today was the last day in his week-long refrain from crying, so I told him we could go to a store to see if we could find his Lego guy.  When we went to Germany, we found a Lego store where they were selling the little Lego figures for a euro, so I was curious to see if I could find something similar at our local Target.  Jack decided that he would also bring some of his money and see if there was a set that he might like, as well.  He stuffed his little pockets full of all his bills and a bunch of coins.  I told him to leave the coins at home, but he had $19 in paper money jammed into the pockets of his shorts.

I have a confession to make.  I hate shopping.  Don't get me wrong, I like having things.  I like receiving things.  But I don't like having to look for them, to go out and obtain them, to pay for them.  There is very little about the activity of shopping that appeals to me.  Add in a couple of kids, and, well, let's just say that I avoid shopping with my children as much as I can.  Today was probably only the second time in the last several months that I've gone to the store with both Jack and Violet, and the first time I ended up exchanging words with a very rude woman.  But I had things to get at Target, and I told Jack that we would look for his Legos after I got all the stuff I needed.

He and Violet were very good.  When we finally made it to the Lego aisle, I was so impressed at Jack's restraint.  He never once looked beyond his price range, and there were a lot of cool sets available for a lot of money.  There was, in fact, another little boy who was begging his mom for a set that cost more than $100, and she was trying to cajole him into being happy with a $40 lighthouse play set.  Luckily for us, there were a lot of the sets that Jack likes on sale for $18.  At one point, he contemplated buying a set of pirates, but they were mostly the figures, and I told him that he wouldn't be able to do much building with them.  He went back to looking at the $18 sets and finally chose what I personally thought was the best one anyway.  It is a dump truck that has 222 pieces, which was the most pieces of all the $18 sets.  Jack rightly figured out that the more pieces there are, the more building he would get to do.  (We never did find his little Lego guy on its own, but I think Jack is just banking that treat for another day)

When it came time for us to check out, Jack gave the cashier all $19 of his money.  I knew that, with tax, he was going to be a little bit short.  I still have vivid memories of my very first cash purchase.  My sister and I had just received our first allowance ever: $2 each.  I must have been eight or nine.  We were at the Thrifty's store by our school, and our mom's birthday was coming up.  We found a pair of earrings in her birth stone for $4.  We went to the cashier, prepared to pay for the earrings.  She rang us up, and the total came to $4.28.  We couldn't understand what happened.  Where did that 28 cents come from?  Thankfully, our mom was close by and spotted us the extra change to pay for her own birthday present.  I wanted to spare my little boy the ignominy of coming up short-changed.  His total was $19.40, and I threw in an extra dollar.  Hey, he would have been able to cover it if I hadn't made him leave his coins at home.  The cashier put his Legos in a bag and handed him his receipt.

I told Jack, "That was your first transaction!"

He beamed about it the rest of the afternoon and held on tight to his receipt for the rest of the car ride from the store.

When his dad came home in the evening, he told him, "I had my first transaction today!  And I got a receipt!"

I thought I had given the cashier the extra dollar quick enough that Jack wouldn't even notice, but I overheard him telling his dad about it.  "And I had $19, but the total was $19.40 so my mom gave her an extra dollar."

It's funny the firsts that you never really think about when you are a new parent.  I sort of wish I had taken a picture of him handing his cash to the cashier.  He looked so cute and small, and it was such a quintessentially little kid thing to do to pull all his money out of his little pockets with his chubby little hands.  I have a feeling I won't get quite the same thrill when he makes his first credit card purchase.