Show me the money!

So I am not sure when the well educated child psychologists suggest teaching the value of money but hopefully we are not making a huge mistake. The boys have become very vocal about us going to work. Sometimes they are very glad to see us go since they get to play with Ms. Valerie all day but other days Mom and Dad are pretty cool and they do not appreciate it when we walk out in our "work clothes". We have been explaining to the boys that we have to go to work so we can make money. They are now starting to understand it takes money to buy food to feed all of us and a ton of money to buy gas to feed the car. (don't get me started on that). It is so cute to attempt to understand how their little minds work. Since they have been "cooking" with us by helping make muffins and brownies, they decided it would be ok to make money also. :-) Wouldn't that be nice? haha Orange is not my color and I really do not like jumpsuits so earning money the old fashion way is more my style. I digress. So now that the boys have started to grasp the concept of work leads to making money they are now interested in "working" to earn money. We have started a little allowance agreement. If they put their dishes in the sink in the morning, help Ms. Valerie with various tasks through the day and help Mommy when she gets home from work by cleaning up toys and watering the flowers then they each earn a quarter. This has been great fun since they get to put their quarter in their FROGGIE bank which was a baby gift from their cousin Phoebe. They are just loving it and are very excited to get "their money". We are now trying to get them to understand how to care for their toys. Right now they still have this crazy idea that if they lose or break one of their toys then we just go "shopping" at Target to pick up another. I am hoping that down the road this can be another way to teach them the value of money. I am not sure when this little lesson will occur but we will keep collecting the quarters. So, if you come visit and you are sitting on the couch....watch out! I might start bouncing you up and down since Will and I will be looking for spare change to pay our little guys. :-)