Finally - using money!

I'm sure her father and I were looking forward to her first use of money more than Fiora was! We got her a piggy bank for Christmas last year (it comes apart too easily, so it hasn't really served its intended purpose!), a tiny purse for a car trip last summer (cute, but ends up being too hard for her to open easily), and then finally this past weekend I got her a little zip-up purse like the one I use - she was so excited! I think this one is going to work. (She'd already honed her skills on my own purse, so no problems opening or closing this one.) Then...I cheated. Showed her how to put money in her purse, picked a place for it to stay so "we'd" know where it was. Today Fiora said she wanted to use her money to go buy chocolate ice cream. I wanted to get ice cream anyway so we could have family meeting tonight, so voila. We ended up in the car, she brought her purse with her (!), and we went to the farmers market where she insisted on buying raspberries (love it!) - with the caveat that raspberries cost more than she had, I did an oops...allowed her to pay a dollar because she REALLY wanted to (and I love her getting raspberries), and I paid for the rest. (She ate most of the raspberries, though she did share. And told me I should get my own raspberries!)

Then we went to get ice cream, only she saw chocolates that she's wanted to buy every time we go shopping, and she was very excited that "I have money today, momma!!" So, she got chocolate, and we went halvies on the ice cream.

In retrospect, I'm okay with the raspberries (wish I'd had my own basket, though, that was a good suggestion), but should've bought the ice cream on my own. Harder to define ownership of said ice cream, though she hasn't complained.

And had our best ever family meetings - Fiora ALMOST gave an appreciation. She spread her arms wide and said "my mama, my baba!" We'll take it! ;) And didn't try to leave the table at all. Even put her (crumpled) money in her purse on her own (with some suggestions).

So, _I'll_ get better with helping her with money as we go, but she did great today!