Penny Pincher

The girls have been saving their money earned by jobs around the house and (shhh!) mom dumping her spare change as equally as possible into their jars. Ava has been saving specifically for a humongous "Cars" art pad which was exactly $9.99 at Target and Jillian just thought buying anything sounded like fun. So off we trekked to Target today.

Ava made her purchase and I dumped out a coin purse full of change (note to self: Coinstar to exchange coins to bills) and made her purchase. Next it was Jillian's turn. She proudly placed her Hello Kitty art pad onto the scanner and I counted out her change and handed it to the cashier. Suddenly, wailing ensued. Unsure what the problem was I told her that the cashier has to take her money. Jillian continued to scream that she didn't want me to give it to her and I thought that she just wanted to do it herself. After all, the child *is* two.

When we finally made our way to the parking lot, after scowls from the gentleman behind me and daggers from people around me who clearly have no children, I finally was able to get down to Jillian's level. I asked her what the problem was and she told me:

J: "I dont want the worker to take my money!"
M: "Honey, that's what the worker does. You buy something and she takes your money. You can't do it yourself."
J: "But I want to KEEP my mooooonnnnneeeeeyyyyyy!"
M: "You don't want to give it to her at all?"
J: "NO! I want to keep it all!"
M: "But then you can't buy anything?"
J: "I want to keep all of my money. I don't want to buy anything!"

Ah. She inherited her Grandpa B's penny-pinching ways. The poor child didn't want to part with her money for things.

Well, we made it into the car and Ava promptly tells her:
"Jilly, maybe you should just save all your money and give a little bit to God."

And Jillian responded with,
"Yes, Ava. That's what I'm going to do now. I don't want anyone to have my money again."


Grandpa, I hope you're proud!