Parts is Parts

So far today I have:

1. Got caught up in my Bible in 90 days reading. This shall be celebrated with chocolate.
2. Got suckered by a marketing scam promising Olive Garden gift cards.
3. Cut toothpicks in half so that they could then decorate a porcupine made out of model magic.
4. Discovered that sandwiches are "too boring", but the exact same ingredients put on hot dog buns and called a sub receive "thank you Mommy!" from an excited little boy.
5. Blogged in an attempt to forget about the ginormous pile of laundry which has taken over my bed.
6. Realized that my lack of patience over the past couple of days can't be blamed on hormones, since that time of the month is still two weeks away. 
7. Found my phone charger AND my house keys.
8. Researched some sites for Sweetling to find an international pen pal. 
9. Discovered that there was a country in Europe named San Marino, and its on the list of the world's 5 smallest countries. 

Also today I worked with Toa on an important lesson in economics....namely, if one looses the cool pieces of the super cool building set Mommy was super excited to find in a used curriculum sale, AND TRIES TO SHRUG OFF THIS LOSS AS NO BIG DEAL, one may find oneself buying replacement pieces out of one's own allowance. (Remember, lack of Mommy patience.)

Behold the chain of events.

Nearly every day, there is a scheduled block of time when we break from our regular curriculum so that each child can work on a self-initiated project or pursue a topic that interests them. Toa has made a penguin diorama, textile art, and such during his "Independent Explorations" time. Sweetling usually works on designing graphics or drawing her own Homestar Runner cartoons.

So, today, time for independent explorations rolled around. Toa asked me what he could do. I replied that he could do anything he wanted, or, since I had some free time, I could help him build something with his building set.

"Oh," said Toa. "I broke that and lost the pieces."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, I broke the fan (the first, and potentially, last thing we built), and the pieces got all lost."

"I let you put that on your desk in your room cause it was so cool and you wanted to keep it safe."

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. What else can we do?"

At which point Toa quickly learned that it most certainly did too matter. And that in, in point of fact, mattered to the tune of replacing any and all lost parts with his own money if those pieces didn't get found TODAY.

Within a span of 15 minutes, all the pieces were on the kitchen table and successfully inventoried against the build list for the fan project.

Long live economics.