Making money

Eli likes to talk about working and making money. His job, if you ask him, is to make money out of leaves, trees and sticks.

He often can't take part in some other activity because of his work.

Earlier this month, I told him I was making a chore chart for him so he could do jobs around the house. He said, "Yeah, but I have an important job to do to make money out of trees, leaves and sticks and that is a lot of work, so I can't clean the house."

How do you argue with that?

He also uses that excuse even if the alternative is a fun activity. Today I told him that we might go to a friend's house and play in their sand box.

Eli: "OK, but when will I do my work?"

Mama: "Well, you can do it before we go or after you get back."

Eli: "Yeah but I have to work about 15 hours today and that's a lot of work. Maybe another day I can play, but today I have to get my work done."

Too bad his "work" doesn't include picking up his clothes or toys!

Learning to balance

This spring, Eli has been biking almost every day. He is very proud of his bike, and very interested in riding it everywhere. He puts on his helmet and rides to work (which is just around the house and back). He definitely is trying to be like his Dadda, who rides to work. A typical scenario goes like this:

Eli: "Need to ride to work Mama."

Mama: "OK honey."

Eli: "I'll come home for lunch/dinner. You make it."

We are working on having him see Michael make lunch and dinner so he doesn't grow up with gross stereotypes in his head :)