Cashing In

I had written before collecting beans for happy hearts and not whining. Well, both kids have really taken to the idea and have pretty much filled up their first round. Many beans have been lost for whining or complaining, but many more have been earned.

They were promised a prize each time...either an event, special restaurant or reasonably priced toy. Tessa changed her mind every day...a pet fish, girly legos, a trip to Disneyworld (as if), and most recently a camp out in a tent in the backyard with Daddy (because with Mommy's back and allergies, a camp out in the back yard might actually kill her).

I really liked that idea and started mentally arranging who we would borrow camping gear from, until Jeremy pointed out to me that it's still in the 30's and 40's at night around here. I told Tessa that when she fills up her NEXT jar that we WILL plan a camp out, but that she needed to allot this reward to something else.

On our trip to the zoo yesterday she figured out what it was. A very cute stuffed meerkat.

Tessa's affection for meerkats started last summer. There was one weekend that we were all sick so we laid around and watched episode after episode of the Discovery show 'Meerkat Manor'. When the matriarch, named Flower, got eaten by a rattle snake Tessa actually cried and then asked to watch the episode again...which began a very short fascination with death and heaven.

She originally asked to be a meerkat last Halloween but even after scouring the internet, I couldn't find one in her size. She was a pretty good super girl though, so it all worked out.

Anyway, she named her new toy Flower of course, and when we got home we emptied the bean jar to start again.

Charley is close to full and still holding out for a trip to the movie theater. I'm hoping it will line up right in time for that documentary about the baby chimp.

By the way, blogger keeps telling me that meerkat is not a word. I double checked. It totally is.