Money from the Toilet

My youngest needed some incentive when we were potting train him.  He had perfect control over his…habits, but he just refused to go poo-poo in the potty.  I’m sorry; it was what it was.  The boy just needed to poop in a pull-up.  Pee-pee?  Fine.  Not a problem.  Poo-poo?  No way.  Pull-up, please.

So, my wife being the brilliant parent out of the two of us, set up a savings plan with him: for every poop he did in the potty, we’d drop 50 cents in an envelope so we could go to the zoo.  All he had to do was cover the parking.  The Lincoln Park Zoo, you see, is essentially free.  Parking is the only thing you need to pay for.

Of course, my little guy loved the plan, and, as a result, started pooping in the potty immediately.  Fast-forward a few months, and it’s off to the zoo we go, the $20 required for parking in that same little envelope.  When we got to the zoo, my wife noted that the parking rates were pretty steep and that $20 was only going to get us 4 hours.  “We have to make sure we’re back in 4 hours,” she said.  “Why?” asked the little one.  “We didn’t bring enough money to pay for 5 hours, sweetheart,” she announced.  Part of our education plan for our kids is to teach them the value of spending what you have.  In this case, we made a big deal about him saving $20, so we had to stick to that.  “I guess we’ll just have to stick with what we have,” my wife added.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” came that little voice.  “If we need more money we can just go back home, so I can poop some more.”

Ahh…if only life were that easy…