Tuesday, March 9, 2010

A Penny for Your Strawberry Cream

Needing to get out for some fresh air and exercise after Lukas' nap time the other day, Mrs. LIAYF suggested it might be fun to load up all the loose change that had accumulated recently in the various nooks and crannies of our abode, and bike it up to the local Coin Star machine with our son.

So, we loaded it all into an empty yogurt container, which we carefully placed into his Ketler tricycle basket, and were off on yet another neighborhood adventure.

Being coin counting virgins, we didn't know quite what to expect once we arrived at the machine. That being said, once we had most carefully dumped all the change into the machine receptacle, filtered it in through the counting slot, and were given the final tally of our recycled change, we were then presented with three competing options of what to do with our mini fortune.

Looking them over, Mrs. LIAYF and I quickly decided which option we would choose. Now, we just needed to convince Lukas as well.

"Lukas, you can do one of three things with the money we dumped into the machine." Mrs. LIAYF explained.

"Do you want to get a voucher for some paper money?"

"You could also get a piece of plastic, which we could order some new books with."

"Or.....You could help give food to some hungry boys and girls who have no Mommy or Daddy."

Pause...

"And, if you did that we would get you some ice cream too!"

"Yeah! Dat's it." "Feed hungry boys and guurls!"



I'd be willing to bet that philanthropy never before tasted quite so sweet.

17 comments:

Not From Lapland said...

That could be a cunning new ploy to get people all over to donate money. If some one were to offer me ice cream I'm not sure I'd be able to resist!

i love the idea of this machine - i've never heard of them before.

Steve said...

LOL. Excellent! He'll get to look back and see he did a good thing AND he got ice cream. A winning combination!

Ed said...

Pure gold, man. Pure gold!

Anonymous said...

Nice homey... every little bit counts for sure. Way to teach the kiddo some good morals!

WeaselMomma said...

How very sweet!

Chris Singer said...

Oh, that's so great! What a great job you and the Mrs. are doing with little Lukas! Empathy comes natural to kids but it takes good parents to bring it out of their kids.

Anonymous said...

If only we all lived with the compassion of the child.

Jessi said...

How wonderful! I should start doing this with Brynna. I'm sure she would surprise me with her compassion.

OneZenMom said...

Awesome with a cherry on top. :)

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmmmm ice cream and giving. What flavor?

Mrs. M said...

Nope, you definitely didn't LEAD him towards what you wanted at all - it was 100% his choice! :)

Captain Dumbass said...

I'd donate to every cause if ice cream was involved.

If I Could Escape . . . said...

Bribing is okay in small doses, right?

Jack Steiner said...

That is very cool. Teach them to give back while they are young.

Otter Thomas said...

Bribing for good purposes is a good idea. We should just call it encouraging with ice cream. Nice lesson to teach him.

Keith Wilcox said...

748 pennies. That's a lot of pennies. You were a little thin on quarters though.

I'm going to admit straight up that there's no way my kids would have chosen donation :-) They would have picked paper money on the spot. You must be doing something right, man. Good job.

Revanche said...

Now that's teaching him to reach win-win solutions!