CASH DIET

At the beginning of the month I told my six year old and my husband that we were on a “cash diet”. With the economy the way it is, I think that we need to tighten the spending belt and eliminate our frivolous spending. No more daily trips to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee™, no more eating dinner out five times a week, and no more “prizes” when we go grocery shopping. It is amazing how much money you can save just by cutting those things or reducing them. I am embarrassed to even say how much money we spend on non-essential items each month.

I didn’t realize that my daughter translated this as “we are poor” until a couple of weekends ago when she went to a friend’s birthday party. Upon picking her up, the mom told me that she was still laughing because my daughter told her that she was going to have to sell some of her colorings to earn money for us because we have a house that costs $25,000 (whole other story!) and we were poor. She continued to tell her how we were on some kind of diet! I could have died, but I laughed instead.

Last night I was looking through old pictures I had scanned on my computer when my daughter saw my high school senior picture and asked me to print a copy out for her. I did, thinking she just wanted it to look at. Later that evening she came to me and said, “Mom, I think you need to print me out a bunch of these so I can sell them to the neighbors.” I just started laughing! I told her that she did not need to go door to door selling my picture. Could you imagine that? I mean, I know I looked good, but really, how much money would my picture bring in?

It does warm my heart that my daughter wants to contribute to the family budget. Kids need to learn that money does not grow on trees and that you don’t get everything you want when you want it. I told my husband we need to help her set up a Lemon-Aide stand so she can feel like she is contributing. At the same time I don’t want her to worry about our finances. It is a difficult lesson to teach a child especially when she is used to getting everything she wants.

The funny thing is that this morning when I got up I saw that she had hung my picture on the outside of her bedroom door for all to see. What can I say? My daughter loves me! Am I lucky or what?

WORDS OF WISDOM

Kids say the funniest things! Earlier this evening we were driving home and my six year old daughter and her 7 year old cousin were discussing what you do in case of an earthquake and in case of a fire. My niece asks, “Aunt Shell do you know what you do when you are trapped in a fire?” I replied, “No, what do you do?” Her response, “You die!”

I am still laughing about that. She also told us that if the door handle is hot “You’re a goner.” Do they teach this in school when they are doing fire drills because I don’t remember learning that!

At least I got a good laugh!

GERM-FEST

I love my daughter, but kids really are a big “germ-fest” waiting to happen. All my life kids have been making me ill. Not because I have an aversion to kids, but because every germ they have somehow manages to transfer to me.

When I was single, before I had my own personal germ carrier, I had my nephews. It never failed that every time I came to visit they would be afflicted with some childhood virus. For example, one winter I came out and they had croup. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting croup, it is a loud cough that often resembles the barking of a seal. Most kids (note I said “kids) that come in contact with the viruses that cause croup won’t actually get it. Instead they will have symptoms of a head cold. I, however, am never that fortunate.

I love my nephews and fortunately they reciprocate the feelings. They used to love to cuddle with me, hug me, and even give me kisses (it didn’t help that they were “on the mouth” kissers), and on occasion, cough or sneeze on me. Thus the germ transfer! I knew as soon as I was coughed on, I was going to get croup. Everyone kept telling me that it was only kids who got it, but I knew.

When I returned home my cough had gotten so bad, people at work were throwing cough drops at me over the cubicle dividers. Someone even came over to see if a seal had escaped the zoo and somehow made its way into our office. Tired of being pelted with lemon and honey cough drops, I finally decided I should go visit my doctor, lest I had some highly contagious virus I was unknowingly spreading to my office workers. As I sat in the exam room waiting for my doctor to come in I started coughing so hard I thought I had hacked up a lung. My doctor came in and said, “That’s some cough you have.”

“Really?” I asked somewhat sarcastically.

Then he listened to my chest and as he did he said, “Hmmm. It sounds like you have croup. Have you been around anyone with croup recently?”

I then told him my tragic story of how I stayed with my sister and my croup inflicted nephews who insisted on coughing in my face. He said, “Yep, that’d do it. Although I don’t see many adults with croup, but you definitely have it.”

With that he put his stethoscope in his lab coat, wrote me a prescription for steroids and some cough syrup so I could sleep at night and told me not to cough in anyone’s face. Funny!

To this day I am constantly washing my hands after I have touched anything a kid has touched. I had a co-worker, who also happened to be a good friend, once tell me that I washed my hands too much and that was why I always got sick. He said that when he had kids he was going to let them get dirty and germy so that their immune systems built up nice and strong. Personally I think that if I didn’t wash my hands so much I might be dead from some exotic disease being passed around by kids!