Bidness

This morning the girls woke up with one thing on their minds: lemonade. Creating and running a lemonade stand. No matter that we live on a quiet street. No matter that the street is closed until fall so the city can install drainage lines. Clara was convinced they would have hundreds of customers. The idea came from a Max and Ruby book, I'm sure. But the girls had their own ideas...until I nixed it, they wanted to give their pennies to customers. I explained why this wasn't a good idea.
Luckily, we had a few lemons in the fridge, so we squeezed them and added real sugar and lots of ice. It must be a dentist's nightmare, with the lemon peeling away the enamel and the sugar going to work. But it was really refreshing.
So we moved their picnic table outside and voila! they had an instant lemonade stand. Clara said she couldn't write, but she could draw, and so she drew a sign that, in her mind, said lemonade for sale. It looked like Japanese haiku.
A student from next door bought several cups, at five cents a cup. He confessed he was nursing a hangover and thought the lemonade might help. Then our neighbor Peter and his mom came by, and then our friend Joan. And then Stuart showed up and gave them much more than five cents for his cup. They were both beaming.
We walked to a nearby toy store and Clara picked out her train. She wants a Brio train that she can use at home. I think it costs $21. The thing I like is that both girls are content merely to look at the many wonderful things in this store, without whining when we come home with nothing. Looking costs nothing. Friends of ours own the store, and they buy the coolest, most interesting stuff. Makes me almost want to be little again.
I'll have see if they want to staff the lemonade stand tomorrow.....