Money

Remember the movie Rain Man, where Raymond knows all these ridiculous facts and can make amazing computations in his head, but he doesn't know if a candy bar is worth 50 cents or a hundred dollars? Well, that is kind of like our kids, except for the amazing computations part and most of the amazing facts part. Basically, money has no true meaning to them, so we watch them use it as a play toy in their rooms, it spills out of their coats unnoticed onto the ground in some store parking lot, it gets left behind on their car seat never to be retrieved. A while back we took most of the large bills they had collected from birthdays and such, and put them into the bank for safe keeping. So Saturday, we had to go out shopping and decided they could go to the dollar store at the end of the trip and spend 1 dollar each. The pandemonium that ensued was legend. Gretchen, from who knows where, produces 10 dollars in bills and tons of quarters. She thinks she'll just spend it all. Becket breaks down crying because he realizes that he has lost all the money he once had, and/or given it all to Gretchen "for something I wanted, but I can't remember what it was." I tell Gretchen she can only take 1 dollar along because she'll lose the rest and she should return it all to her bank. She returns with 4 quarters. Becket on the other hand scrounges 40 cents from the couch cushions or somewhere, and I say I'll make up the difference (there's an atonement analogy there I didn't even bother to try and explain). When we return home, Gretchen goes back to her room and returns despondent. "Dad, my 10 dollars is missing. I think someone took it from my room while we were gone. Or the wind blew it out." (It is snowing outside and the windows haven't been opened since October 2010. She later returns with one crinkled 5 dollar bill, lamenting "I lost 5 dollars!" We scolded her for her irresponsibility and sent her on to bed. Later, when we went to bed, we find this note folded under the pillows of our bed.

Maybe this is a hint of understanding breaking through, or she is just upset because she won't have that "one paper with Abe Lincoln on it, like the penny."