C.H. Armstrong Books

Mr.  Moneybucks

At 7 years old, Braden has more money than he knows how to handle.  He has no real concept of money, so I’ve confiscated most of it from him and placed it in a safe place so that it’s there when he’s ready to use it.  And, while he has no concept of money, he absolutely knows that the larger the number on the front of a bill, the more money he has overall.

The other day I had given Braden money for the ice cream truck.  From his purchase, he had a few dollars left over that I’d not had a chance to confiscate yet.  One morning he crawled up into my lap with his fistful of money.  When he wasn’t paying attention, I silently slid each dollar bill into my bra thinking that he’d never notice.  Of course, once they had disappeared, he noticed that they were gone.

“Hey!  Where’s my money?” he accused.

“I took it to put it away,” I responded.

“No!  I want it back!  Give me my money back, please!”

Fine.  There was no way to get out of it, so I collected the dollars I’d confiscated and handed them over to him.

With a look of pure mischief, Braden said, “Hey!  I had a $20!  Where’d it go?”

Uh-huh.  Riiiiigggght!  Nice try, Buddy!

Parenting Rule # 6,827

Every parent knows that you NEVER ask a question unless you’re 100% certain of the answer you’re going to receive.

Case in point…

7 year old Braden was being really obnoxious and doing everything within his abilities to irritate the daylights out of me.  Finally in exasperation, I turned to him and said, “Do you really want to make me angry this evening?”

With a slight pause and a grin on his face, he responded, “No. Well…ummm…maybe just a little weensie bit!”

A Wise Weapon of Choice?

I recently stumbled upon a recipe for Beer Bread.  It’s an amazing and very easy recipe requiring only flour, beer, sugar and butter.  Simple to make and it makes the best next-day toast ever.

A few weeks ago I made another wonderful loaf of this bread and my husband asked me if I’d toast some of it for him as a late-night snack.  As a dutiful wife (don’t laugh!) I did as he requested. As I began buttering the toasted bread with light butter, Troy shrieked,  “Whoa! Are you trying to kill me? That’s an awful lot of butter!”

In a moment of complete irritation, all I could do was respond exactly what I was thinking.  “Yeah!” I said.  “Cuz I’m so smart that my weapon of choice is light butter!”