Oh, you wanna know what I'm talking about? Well, let's begin this tale of Miss Lilly and her pennies.
A couple years ago, when Miss Lilly was a new toddler I discovered she liked "money." That's what she called pennies, or any coins. When I knew she was coming over I would make a little pile of 6 to 10 or more on the second step. They were for her to drop into my piggy bank. Kids can sit on one step, and use the next step up as a table. It was just a quiet little bonding thing we did.
She toddles over to the step, looks up at me with sweetness in her face, and I placatingly pull down plastic pig. This is one of our moments.
The piggy bank for pennies is pink clear plastic with 4 slots labeled save, invest, spend, and donate. There are two more banks, minion banks, those yellow Dispicable Me characters -- one is smaller, Stuart, a one-eyed Minion, the other one is larger, Dave.
In those four Dispicable Me movies, Stuart dreams others are bananas and tries to eat them. But really he prefers to chill with his ukulele. Dave, his friend, is accident prone but kind and funny. The smaller bank is for quarters, the larger one is for nickels and dimes. They bear a post-it note that says "Feed Me".
Why? Because I want to go on vacation and change means financial independence for visiting vending machines, a quick purchase at a flea market, or bargaining for dollars at the cashier's counter. Everyone wants change these days. There's a shortage, they say.
Anyway, Jayden and Alayna have discovered this little occurance of piled coins on the step. They like to join in. Miss Lilly thinks the "money" is, "All mine"! But quickly caves because she really doesn't mind sharing and she likes playing with her cousins.
Then Jayden, the oldest of them all, discovered I had hidden behind John's recliner a gumball machine. It's as tall as Jayden with black stand and red case around glass orb hoarding green and red gumballs. Oh, yum, his eyes plead while his tongue licks!
One day he came in all excited, poked his little skinny fingered hand into his pocket, pulled it out, raised it high, two fingers pinching copper, "I have a penny!"
"Good for you, Jayden, you found a penny."
Well, he wasn't saving it for the banks, he'd come to twist the delivering knob on the my gumball machine for something juicy sweet!
I'd had the gumball machine a whole year, from when Spencer gave it to me for a Christmas gift. But they've just recently discovered it. It's so much fun.
Sometimes when Jayden comes in the first thing he asks me is "Do you have any money?"
Alayna bounces in, sidles up beside him, jumping up and down, "I want one, too, Jayden! I want one, too, GrammyPam!" Of course, I cave. I can't resist a toddler.
Little Jacob who just turned two, isn't allowed pennies. He ate one at home, the goose.
Noelle, has no interest. She's got other things to do and prefers to mosey with a little pink stroller pushing a baby doll through the hall.
Well, this gumball machine is cornered. Seriously, it's where two walls meet in the living room, hid behind the blue recliner, like I said, with the couch on the other side. The kids have to crawl over the couch armrest and fall down into the cavity that makes up that corner.
It's good for 'em. It quietly uses up their time. They have to exert energy. They have to share space with each other. They have to use their brains and body to figure out how to get out.
Jayden just hoists himself up and over. The little ones crawl on the floor between couch and recliner. But poor Alayna, Sunday when she climbed back there, she couldn't figure out how to get out, "Help!" And, from the other room you could hear her feet hitting the floor and her body thudding against the recliner. She'd forgotten how to get out, or in her growth spurt
all things, muscles, tendons, and synopsis, weren't coordinated yet.
But have you noticed? Have you put it together?
I buy the gumballs. Then I buy them again.
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