Monday, April 19, 2010

The Hired Help

Spring seems to have finally arrived, and with it, a hoard of dandelions. I decided to put Morgan to some good use and have him do something about them. So, he got his dump truck and wheeled it around the front yard picking the dandelions and putting them in his truck.

I thought it would be fun for him and a good way to control the multitude of weeds in our yard.

But soon he got tired of the chore. He had gathered a lot already. So, we counted them up. Before we started I told him that he would get one penny for every dandelion he picked. I almost decided on a nickle per flower, and I'm glad I didn't! This boy picked a lot of dandelions.

I had them in piles of 20. There ended up being 101 dandelions, and there were still a ton of them left in the yard!

Just because he's cute...

I made good on my promise. I gave Morgan four quarters and one penny. Then we headed to the Commissary so Morgan could pick a treat. He chose a package of Airheads.

He put his candy on the conveyor belt, then gave the cashier three quarters and put the 3 pennies change in his pocket with the rest of his money. Then we headed to the library. At the library they have one of those little candy machines. A quarter for a handful of skittles or something. For the past year Morgan has been eying it and coveting the candy inside, and for a year the candy has slowly depleted. When we finished in the library Morgan decided to use his last quarter. Unfortunately, the only thing left in it was Good and Plenty's. I tried to convince Morgan that he might not like them, but to no avail. He operated the machine like an expert and collected his very old candies. After eating one, he decided that he didn't want anymore.

But he did like his airheads. He thought it was hilarious when the blue raspberry airhead turned his tongue and lips blue.

Even with Morgan's help, the dandelion population in our yard has exploded. If we paid Morgan to pick them all we'd probably go bankrupt. Oh well.

Oh yeah, when we first went outside, Morgan was just fine. By the time he finished picking the weeds he had a major runny nose and a frog in his throat. It seems like allergies are one of the only traits Morgan inherited from me.
Try explaining to a three year old what you really mean when you say, "you have a frog in your throat." Kids. They take things so literally! :)

2 comments:

Smullin Family said...

Dandilion picking is one of Abree's favorite jobs. She offered to do some picking on Saturday. She came in with a good amount filling the grocery sack she had.

I too have paid before and couldn't believe how much I had to fork out! It really doesn't look like THAT much out in the yard. :)

Kevin said...

When I was a kid we had major snail problems in California. My mom agreed to pay me a nickel for each snail I could pick. She gave me a paper grocery bag to collect them in. I rolled the top edge down a bit to make the bag a little more sturdy then got started.

After an hour or so I was having a hard time keeping the snails in the bag. I'd put them in then slowly they would slime their way up the sides of the paper bag toward freedom.

When it finally got to the point that I was spending more time putting the already captured snails back in the bag than I was capturing new ones I decided it was time for the reckoning.

I broke mom's bank with hundreds of snails (I don't remember how many now but it was several hundred).

It seems catching the snails was the easy part. My mom hadn't thought it through. What do you do with several hundred snails once you catch them?

Well, we put them in one of the garbage cans and put the lid on it. That was in the days of metal garbage cans. It was summer. By the time, 5 days later, that the garbage man came it was one gross, stinky mess. I wasn't around when they came to collect our garbage. And I think mom just stayed in the house to avoid it altogether.

She never asked my brother and I to pick snails again.