Yesterday was gorgeous and either I was going to throw my children into solitary confinement or get them out of house. Why the drastic measures?

You're mean!
You're mean!
You're the meanest!
Mommy, David keeps banging on my door!
You're stupid!

So Rose got two dollars out of her spending money. I gave David two dollars. We got on our bikes and cheerfully headed off. Well, sort of:

David always gets to go first!
David's in my way!
I'm the fastest!
David, if you go in the street again without waiting for me to say it's safe to cross, you are going home immediately. Do you understand? Do you understand? I'm absolutely serious. You could have been killed. There are a lot of cars here. . .

Luckily, our first stop was the motherlode: Barbie dolls and horses for 5 cents each. Rose bought three, her first Barbies. She's so happy. I have decided not to sweat it. I mean I could make the big speech about Barbies being anatomically incorrect and all about beauty and fashion and not courage and good hearts, but I had enough immediate correcting to do without big speeches. And, I loved letting her make her own decisions with her own money. No whining, no pleading, no fighting, just serious discussions about value.

Then, after the bead devastation (see previous entry), we found a new bike for David. We haven't been actively looking for a new bike, but we've been talking about it quite a bit. Barb was over the other day and definitely thought his current one was too small. So, here was this big boy bike--slightly bigger frame, higher training wheels, and dark blue. It was also five dollars. David is getting used to riding on just one training wheel, but otherwise, we are all pretty happy.