Economics explained in Kindergarten Terms?. A Teaching Moment, or so I thought.

Mr. EZ saw Barrack Obama on TV the other day and he said "Mommy, why does President Obama have so much to say?"

I thought about it a minute and realized that the only TV EZ has seen other than the cartoon and disney channel is FOX News. Fox has had many mini clips of the Prez leading up to his big speech last week. I answered him like this "Well the President has to talk to the people of our country and all the other leaders in other countries in the world. We have an economic crisis and he is trying very hard in his new job to help all the people keep their house, job, car....." Of course that leads into what is an 'nomic sis'? So I go on to explain that we bought our car on credit from a bank who knew they could trust us to pay them back and once we give them all their money, they would send us a piece of paper that is called a deed and then we owned the car. This example is easy for them to understand as they are looking at the car lots that are now vacant on Watson and Russell or so I think. I go on to explain that a person went to buy a car from the nice man who was selling them on the car lot but when the person went to the bank, the bank said no and that meant the person couldn't buy a car and the nice man selling them couldn't sell them since the bank kept him from having customers who could use them. With no customers, the nice man had to close and he would now be asking a bank somewhere to help him while he looked for another job. When I think both boys understand it, it seems MR SS got it, little MR EZ says "I know mom, the bad men in black suits in black trucks took all the customers away and the cars too!" So much for trying to explain.... I think because he saw MIB and they drove black cars, they have something to do with our countries economic woes. I can't wait for the next 'deep' conversation we have while driving around town. I will continue to try to educate the boys so they will become self sufficient young men with a good financial sense about them. Afterall, they will be the ones making decisions about our country, oh and determining which nursing home they are going to put Daddy and I in one day. HA!

Ever Had One of those Days where you had to be in 3 places at once?

Mr. Easy Going(EZ) wanted me to plan his teams Upward Basketball party so we decided on today so all players could attend. Then came an invite for a school friend's skating bday party. At the same time karate sparring practice was happening and oh, I thought it would be great to take EZ and Mr. Super Serious(SS) to the Monster Truck Jam at the Centreplex. I knew all these things had to happen but didn't realize it was all within a three hour time frame on the same day. I explained to EZ that he could go to the Team party and not play at Johnny G's inorder to go to Karate and then leave from there to make it to the Bday party of his friend and then leave there early for the Monster Truck Show. He actually agreed to skip the playing inorder to go skating with his friends. Johnny G's had the pizzas ready on time but the handing out of the trophies took longer than expected and we ended up missing Karate altogether. We ran home and kept calling dad and see where SS was to make sure he didn't get left behind or dad didn't become late for work. Guess what? Dad didn't have his phone! EZ changed into jeans in the car and we went to the skating rink and passed Dad along the way. The boys had a great time once they got the hang of falling down and picking themselves back up on the rink floor. Mr. SS looked like he had spaghetti legs :). Grandma kept calling asking when we were going to make it to the truck show since she was already there and waiting in her car! We left the skating rink and got to the truck show in record time! We all enjoyed ourselves watching the monster trucks pulverize the cars and van. I had brought earplugs for all but didn't think about the 'fumes' and the burning rubber doing donuts. It was a 1st for me and I think it will be one of those things I could check off my 'bucket' list and skip in the future. The most beautiful part of the day was the monster trucks. The boys grandpa passed away a year and a half ago. He took Mr. SS to a monster truck show along with Grandma a couple of years ago. At that time, Mr SS was sick and threw up in their car so they HAD to buy him a new shirt. He remembers that as if it happened yesterday and when we drove up to pay for parking he told the cashier all about it and asked her if she remembered the boy who had got sick. Mr. EZ bought a racing flag and a shirt. He said he wanted to take a picture for his Grandpa and put it on the grave so when Grandpa came back to life he could get the picture and take it back to Heaven. He also said how Grandpa would be smiling when he saw the racing flags. It is so precious for him to remember the fun times he had with Grandpa and to remind him how much Grandpa loves him.