It all started a few weeks ago when Jonas discovered the Dragonolgy books at the local bookstore. He was enraptured. He wanted them all, and the more expensive they were, the more he wanted them. Now, I am all about buying books for my children, and I have spent embarrassing amounts of money on them in the past six years. (The first thing I bought to prepare for my first baby was not baby gear. It was about fifteen books my kid just had to start off with when he was still a bug eyed noodle in my womb. Priorities, right?) However, these Dragonology books are expensive, and I’m already buying him several chapter books a month. We discussed the price of the books, and even put it into comparisons like “five Magic Tree House books for the cost of one Dragonology book.” Jonas understood the concept, but did argue that it was a really, really cool book, and I had to agree. It is pretty awesome.

I gave the usual “maybe for your birthday” answer, and thought it would be over, but throughout the next few weeks those books just kept coming back up. Every trip to the bookstore involved him spending an hour perusing several of them and ended with more pleas to take one home. This was not a passing fancy. We also had several talks about the cost of things and how expensive many of our wants are. He was really bummed about not having any money, so I gave him the opportunity to earn some, and earn it he did.

I do not believe that children should be paid for doing every day chores. I think that routine home maintenance is something that you learn to do because it is a part of life, a part of taking care of your family, and a part of contributing to a healthy society. Because of this, I couldn’t have him just sweep the floors to earn the money. Instead, I had him bake cookies to sell on the curb. He did nearly all of the work involved in baking them. He measured, mixed, rolled out the dough balls and even cleaned up after himself. The only thing I did was put the cookies through the oven. He made a cookies for sale sign ( I made one too), and he sat outside with our piano bench and a few plates of cookies for an hour and a half.

He sat for the entire first half an hour with absolutely no sales. People drove by, smiled and waved, which drove Jonas mad because every time a person acknowledged him, he thought they were going to stop. His little sister had to be banned from the front yard for cookie rustling. This was serious stuff to Jonas.

(Could you resist that face? I couldn’t.)

After much patience on his part, I finally got on the phone and called two friends, both who were kind enough to drop by or send one of their kids to buy a cookie. I called Chris at work and he told his coworkers what was up, and a few stopped by as well.

(Aw, Rosy and a perfect stranger buyin’ cookies! See how stoked Jonas is?)

People came in spurts, even quite a few who the little entrepreneur’s mama didn’t call behind his back, and when he finished up, there were four cookies left and he was $15.50 richer! He was extremely excited and wanted to go to the bookstore right then, but I explained to him that he still didn’t have enough cash to buy the book from the store, but I had found the book on Amazon for only $13.50, so he could order it and even have some pocket change left over. He is already stalking the mailman.