My Daughter, the Businesswoman

Are you visiting from The Ultimate Blog Party? If so, welcome! My party post is here .

I've never really used my daughter's name on here-I'm not really sure why, but for now, I'll follow that old Mommy Blog cliche and call her a cutesy nickname.  I've called her Little Bit since she was a baby, so we'll go with that.  I call my son Tot, even though at 7, he's probably way too old for that nickname, but he'll always be my Totty.  And I'll probably still be smelling his head when he's in college.  What? Sometimes (probably when his hair needs to be washed) his hair still gets that sweet smell it had when he was a baby.  It's a Mom thing.  Anyhow, I'm getting waaaay off track here, which I'm prone to do.  I'm supposed to be talking about what a shyster entrepreneur my 9 year old Little Bit is.

When she's not playing her DS, or pretending to be a cat or dog with her brother, or writing plays to make the neighborhood kids act in, she's dreaming up ways to make some cold, hard cash.  Need a household chore done? She's your girl, if the price is right.  (Although sometimes I make her do them anyhow, because "I'm the Mom and I said so", and all that).  When her brother had to sell popcorn for Cub Scouts, she was itching to get out the door and sell it for him (even though she wouldn't get the money).  When Girl Scout cookies season rolled around, she set a goal of selling 1000 boxes of cookies. It's so hard to tell your child that they are aiming too high.  "Set your goals a little lower, dear."  See, that's just not right!

The picture is of Little Bit having a Toy Sale last summer during our neighborhood's annual garage sale.  (No, we don't always keep our garbage cans in the driveway.) The stuff you see is only a portion of what she decided to sell.  She did pretty well, she's got the "cute factor" going for her.  One lady came by twice to buy My Little Ponies from her.  She didn't even have kids, she just said that Little Bit looked so cute and hopeful standing out there, that she had to buy something from her.  (Yes, if I've taught her anything as a mother, it's how to stand by looking cute and hopeful until somebody helps you. *Bats eyelashes* What? It's a great skill!)

We live in the 'burbs, in a safe neighborhood on a culdesac at the end of a long road.  There are other families with kids on the other side of the culdesac.  We sort of have an understanding with the other families-the kids can go from yard to yard, or ride their bikes in the area, and we all sort of look out our windows and keep an eye on the kids. As they've gotten older, their freedom has expanded, but they mostly have to stay within the culdesac.  When Little Bit was about six, unbeknowst to us, she took off down the street with another little girl, armed with an Easter basket filled with nail polish bottles.  I can't remember how we found out, but when they got about 5 houses down the road, we found out that they were knocking on doors, offering to paint people's nails for .50! They had earned some "sympathy money" from good natured neighbors who now probably thought we didn't watch our kids, but they were made to return it.  (Not one of my finer moments of parenting, that.)

Then there was last fall.  Little Bit had been busy for days, cranking out woven pot holders on her little loom.  (Remember those little square looms with the loops you weave?) Our neighbors had a bunch of friends over towatch a game, and again, unbeknowst to us, Little Bit made a sign, taped it to the mailbox, and set up shop in the driveway.  I figured out pretty quickly what she was doing and put a stop to it, but not before she had sold 2 potholders for $5 to a "grandparent type" visiting our neighbor.  Five bucks!!

Fast forward to Friday afterschool.  The kids are out playing, enjoying the sunshine and warmth after a long winter. Tot comes in with chocolate around his mouth (a fairly standard look for him), but I didn't make much of it until he mentioned that he needed more quarters.  Low and behold, Little Bit is out in the garage with her Easy Bake Oven making brownies, and selling them to the neighbor kids and her brother for .25 a piece!  I didn't make her stop-I figured if they are dumb enough to pay .25 cents for a nasty old Easy Bake brownie, then so be it.

What does she do with the money? Well, I'm proud to say that she is a very careful shopper.  She can spend over an hour in the toy aisle of Target, trying to decide whether to buy Magic Beans and a couple of packs of Pokemon cards, or a Webkinz, or to save her money.  She compares prices, and agonizes over these decisions forever.  (Unless she's spending our money...)

I was going to go into how she used to convince her little brother to trade her his paper money for her pennies and nickles (he's since wisened up), and how every year she cons him out of the best of his Trick or Treat candy (he happily goes along with it to please her), but this post is long enough already.  She says that she's going to be a teacher during the week, a vet on weekends, and a movie star whenever she has extra time, but we think she's going to be a CEO of a big company or a lawyer.  At least we know she can support us when we get old, although she'll probably put us in the "bargain" home....