Your money is where?

Hazel and I had an exchange in a store today that sounded a lot like some scenarios Vicki has played out, but with a little twist. Hazel saw a set of Elmo song books that looked quite appealing to her, and she picked it up and said, "we get this." Right on cue I asked if she had her money. "Yes." Oh, really? I asked her where, and she said it was in her pocket. She was not wearing any clothing with pockets. I asked her to show me, and she searched around on herself for pockets for a minute. Then she said, "I no have pocket." "So then you do not have your money?" "No." I told her that she could not buy the books if she did not have her money to use, and she could try again next time. Then she asked if I had money (ooh, she's quick), and I told her my money was for what I needed to buy, and hers is for what she wants to buy. "That is why we gave you money in Family Meeting." We went back and forth about this for a minute and then I started to walk away. She found another toy she wanted and told me we were going to buy it. I repeated that she would not be able to pay for it since she hadn't brought her money, and kept walking. She carried it with us through the store until she got tired of that and asked me to carry it. I offered to put it up on a shelf for her, which she accepted, and we peacefully left the store. So a bit of debate but no tears or yelling, and Hazel got her first lessons about keeping track of money and remembering to bring it.

On the lying note...

She has also said her bedtime checklist is done when it clearly is not - we have not brushed her teeth yet, and she is not wearing a diaper, but when asked directly she says that yes, both those things are done. My question about Agreements is do we address it with our children when they don't fulfill them, or do we let them live the P without the R, and grow into feeling responsible to it? Of course a two-year-old needs some guidance here, but a six-year-old knows whether he's done his jobs or not. Do I check up on whether the Agreement has been fulfilled, or do I trust them when they say it has? More specifically, do I just make the observation that something hasn't been done yet, or do I actually say, "You can X as soon as Y..." I think the answer is: 1) you trust them when they say they did it, 2) let them do the P as though the R has been met, 3) make the observation that it wasn't, and 4) point out that they now need to earn back the P by fulfilling the R for some number of days, again.

Toby is back to zero for clean clothes. This is turning out to be harder for him than I thought.