The Entrepreneur

(The first day. He had lots of help and it was a little hot! ) lol

About a month and a half ago, the kids and I went to Toys R Us for a birthday gift for a friend. While there, we checked out all the new summer stuff in the front display. We were excited about bubbles, swimming pools, swords, water guns, beach buckets, etc. But, Indy was especially excited about this little plastic toy boat. I don't know what it was about that boat, but he loved it. I kinda blew him off with a "Not now. Maybe next time."

So, about 2 weeks ago, I passed a couple middle school boys in a nearby neighborhood who were selling lemonade. I just love to see kids out selling stuff like that and I almost always try to stop and support them. (I'd rather encourage them working for their money than out "collecting" [read: begging] on the street corner.) Anyway, when I got home, I was telling one of the girls about the little lemonade stand and Indy's eyes lit up. He decided he wanted to make a lemonade stand to make "lots" of money. So, I said ok and we began to plan. Well, I began to plan, he began to drag stuff out because he was going to do this TODAY. I tried and tried to convince him we couldn't do it right now because I had no cups. That would not stop the boy. So, we went to Publix and bought some cheap cups and went home. He had me write "Lemonade 25c" on a sign and he decorated it, drawing a squiggly line around the word and a picture of someone drinking a cup of yellow lemonade. It was so cute. Unfortunately, once we dragged the table, chairs, sign, cups, etc out, we realized we had no lemonade mix. Apparently, I threw our remaining little bit of mix out when I found it, top open, in Levi's secret food stash area and realized he'd been eating it straight out of the can. Anyhoo... Indy was devastated, until he decided to ask one of our neighbors if she had lemonade, and imagine that, she did. Well, one packet anyway. We mixed it up and he sat outside with the the girls and Levi running around. He made about $1.25.

That night I went to Publix and bought a can of mix and he sold again the next day. That day, he was joined by half a dozen neighborhood kids who wanted to "help" him sell. But, by the end of the second day, he had made about $7 all together! I was amazed! And, guess what he wanted to do?? Yep, go to Toys R Us and buy that boat. I had no idea what boat he was talking about and couldn't for the life of me remember having ever even seen this boat that he so patiently and aptly described for me, but he hadn't forgotten! So, we went to Toys R Us and there were 3 of these little boats left at $2.99 each. He was ecstatic! He used his own money and bought that boat and was sooo proud!

This past Sunday, he set his little booth up again and made about another $4, and ran out of cups!! So, it's back to Publix for us to get more cups....and yes, he's gonna have to buy the cups himself. He balked when I told him that, but once he realized I wasn't going to buy them, meaning he couldn't sell any more lemonade, he agreed to buy the cups. lol