*I didn’t accomplish my goal of getting all my summer stories written by last weekend. There are still a few more to come*
One morning the kids came to me and asked if they could have a lemonade stand.
We have never done a lemonade stand before because:
1) Our street is so quiet, my kids would have a hard time making any money.
2) My kids are too young to sit on another street alone selling lemonade.
3) I don’t want to sit with my kids on another street while they sell lemonade.
And so I’ve always pushed the lemonade stand experience into the future “someday.” But my kids have asked, many times.
And on this day they asked, but I told them – “Oh, we don’t have any lemonade.”
And they slunk off to their summer activities, and I thought that was the end of it.
Until I didn’t see them for a while. I grew suspicious as children ran in and out of my front door. I went outside to see what they were doing.
And I found this:
My kids had set up a Water Stand.
As in – luke warm tap water. They didn’t even fill it from the fridge . . . let alone put ice in it. Still, they had conned a few neighbors (two, to be precise) into their scheme, add to that the TWO waters that I bought, and business was good, so it seemed.
But later, after I had made the little lovelies take down their stand, and put everything away, Calvin felt a bit discontent with his share of the loot.
So he came to me an hour or so later, with a whole dollar in hand, and told me, so proudly of his latest earnings:
He had walked next door (to the professional woman that I have only met once because she’s always at work, and never outside), knocked on the door, and told the lady he was selling water. And if she would give him a dollar, he would bring her a cup of water later that day (because, you see, his mother had made him clean everything up, so he didn’t have a cup just then). He proudly showed me his dollar bill.
And of course my mind swam with reactions as he told me this story. I couldn’t decide if I should laugh at his ingenuity and go-getter-ness, or if I should scold him for swindling the neighbor out of a (to a five year old) fortune!
I went with the latter. I made Calvin walk back to the neighbor’s house, give the dollar back, and explain that his mother didn’t allow him to go to the neighbors and ask for money. He was contrite, but he did it.
I saved the chuckle for myself.
My neighbor boys sold me rocks!
Oh I love this story!
Better watch it, with that kind of drive he may try and sell your house!! Sounds like smooth talker…