Saving his money

Today was one for the books. On our way home this evening, Puppy was complaining about the wallet he had and how he didn't like it anymore. I told him that if he didn't like it to hand it over to me and he'd be without because I was not buying him one. He said he wanted a new one from Academy Sports Store. I answered back that he could get one when he collected enough money to buy it himself. But then he asked, how much? So I threw a number out, thirty dollars.

You might be thinking that's a lot of money for a twelve year old. Not really, because I reward him for chores sometimes. And just two weeks ago my aunt gave him five dollars for receiving a perfect score on his spelling test. However, he only had two dollars in his pocket at the time of our conversation and he was feeling like it was the end of the world.

But we got home and he had emptied out my armrest and cup holders in the truck so he ran inside to set it out on the table to be counted. He had seven dollars already. To give him a little hope, I told him he could have whatever change he found around the house. Funny part about this was that I had told Puppy that four quarters make a dollar, so he went around and picked up only quarters.

Puppy worked really hard at finding lost change, or quarters, and at the end of the day he had a total of eighteen dollars. He found the place in my closet where I put my change on the shelf. I let him keep it because I most certainly never thought he'd be half way through his goal.

All this talk about money actually got away from the point I was going to discuss. Puppy had handed over his most important object to him. His wallet is a part of him. It is going to be interesting to see what happens in the days that follow. Will he stick it out and raise the money to buy his own wallet? Or will he break down and beg me to return the old wallet he had up until three hours ago? Also, what will he make his primary focus if he doesn't have his wallet to consume his thoughts?

I hope I didn't make the wrong choice by having him turn over the wallet to me, but here we go again... another lesson to learn, maybe by both Puppy and myself. I'll keep you posted.