Keeper of the Change

Once the dishes are dried, the floors swept and vacuumed, clothes folded (twice folded as I mentioned in my previous blog) what do we do with Pop? I can tell he sometimes gets bored. My husband is a change collector, emptying his pockets nightly into a change basket. One day he made the suggestion that I have my dad sort the change into bags of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. This sounded like a good fine motor activity that would involve repetition and probably provide for some good cerebral exercise.

Emptying the change onto the kitchen table I explained the task to Pop and he began to go to work. I could tell he enjoyed the feel of the coins, something that he does not have opportunity to experience anymore as all his necessities are now purchased for him. Once all was sorted, I put the bags back into the basket and the basket back up onto the shelf. The next day I secretly emptied the coins out of the bags back into the basket and set it before him with the same instruction, "Sort the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters into the bags." He repeated the instructions back to me making sure he understood correctly what he was to do. After another set of bags was successfully sorted I put the basket back on the shelf.

Feeling rather smug that we had found something that he enjoyed doing, could be successful at accomplishing and assuming that he did not remember that he had just sorted the same coins the day before, I started giving him this task on a daily basis. One day after he'd successfully bagged the change, Pop turned to me and said, "Where are you getting all of this change?!" OOps.