Havoc is 7. In our home this means he has reached an age where his rewards & responsibilities begin to increase. Up until age 7 you mostly get a pass on responsibilities apart from picking up your toys and your rewards are limited to some candy in the check out lane if you were good all day while Mom ran errands. Once you are 7 you get an allowance, a later bedtime and chores. All of these things increase as you get older.
The other thing you get when you are 7 is your very own library card (complete with your very own late fees, so save up that allowance). Havoc just got his this week even though he has been 7 since October. He has to be with me to get the library card & he doesn’t get to the county library much during the school year.
Havoc immediately checked out 8 books just because he could. I always limited him to 2-4 books depending on how many he already had out and he had to try out his new found book freedom.
This made Mayhem no end of jealous because he is still limited to 2-4 books on my card.
Mayhem complained non stop from check out to the mini van. Havoc, very generously, offered to let Mayhem borrow books on his card next visit. First he said Mayhem could check out 10 books. But then I reminded Havoc he would be responsible for those books, keeping track of them, returning them, paying the late fees and even the book replacement costs if a book was lost.
Havoc then began to rethink his generosity. Maybe Mayhem could check out 4 books and if he didn’t lose any or anything then the next time he could get 5. Mayhem complained that this was not fair, he should be able to check out as many as Havoc can.
Havoc’s reply.
“I can check out as many as I want Mayhem. It’s my card. I have the power.”
5 comments:
I remember my first library card... it really does feel like power.
Love it! And I love your approach to parenting. Each of my kids got their library card when they learned to read 9i.e. could get all the way through a fairly simple book). Unfortunately neither have turned out to be big readers.
Rinda
All he needed was a MWAAAAAHHHHHHHH after that statement!
I remember how excited my kids were when they got their library cards! Now, I bet they can't even tell me where the cards even are.
lol - that's great - he's got the power! Love it! Cute story. :)
I really enjoyed this one. My eldest is just getting the reading thing down. He will totally bust with pride when he gets his own library card. =]
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