Pay Day

A few weeks ago, Eliana started asking for things every time we went to the store.  "Mommy, can you buy me this?"  Of course, she didn't understand the concept of money.  She also knew that she got some money as a Christmas present from her grandparents in California, but we weren't going to let her spend it all on trinkets from Walmart.

So after doing a little bit of research, we tried to come up with a system where she can learn the value of money.  Eliana can now earn money by doing chores.

As you can see on her chore chart, Eliana can earn money by doing things around the house like setting the table, picking up the books in the living room, or taking Karina's dirty diapers from the upstairs to the downstairs garbage.  She gets a sticker everytime she does a chore and at the end of the week, she gets paid 10 cents per sticker on her chart.

Here she is grabbing her piggy bank.  She is holding it very carefully.  She had another piggy bank (a ceramic one) that she dropped on the floor and it shattered to pieces.

She carefully puts her dimes into the bank.  We are also trying to teach her to save and also give to others. 

So when Eliana earns money, she needs to put 10% into the "give" jar, another 40% into the "save" jar and only the rest can go into her piggy bank.  Eliana is very resistant to this--she especially does not understand why she has to give her money away.  We hope to teach her the value of giving to others, especially those less fortunate than us.

And what was Eliana's first purchase?  An iPhone app.  Is this a sign of the times or what?  She has a game she really likes playing on Emily's phone and paid $0.99 for the full version.  She is now saving up for a doll.  She has 50 cents saved and $19.50 to go.

Karina continues to grow and develop.  She can almost turn on the water faucet (not a good thing) and can open door handles (also not a good thing.)  She was also climbing over the baby gates we set up...and almost falling off as a result.  So we took them down and she goes up and down the stairs by herself.

Karina is definetely a "climber" and tries to climb onto anything.

Karina gets into everything.  She grabbed a hold of stickers once and started covering the mouse with them.

Karina is also getting very snatchy.  Whenever she sees Eliana playing with a toy, she grabs it and says "Mine!".  Eliana has been an extremely tolerant older sister and usually lets Karina have whatever she is coveting.  But every once in a while, Eliana puts her foot down and will not give the item up, which leads to a tug-of-war.  In this case, we make Karina wait for the toy, which usually elicits some crying and wailing on Karina's part. 

Here is a tower that Eliana built.  Then Karina wandered over to destroy it and Eliana (in vain) was trying to protect her tower from the sneak attack.

But all in all, the girls usually get along very well...