August 20th

August 20th, 2010

Jonathan likes to ride his bike around the neighborhood. This morning at about 9 am he asked to go out and ride for a while. His dad said yes and off he went.

A few minutes later he came back and asked me if I thought he would be good at yo yo. I asked why he wanted to know, and he explained that on his bike ride he had seen a garage sale, and had stopped to look and found a yo yo for 25 cents (or 65, he wasn't sure). He wanted to know if he could take some of the change he had in his room and go back to the garage sale and get the yo yo, but he was concerned about whether he would be good at it.

I told him that sure he should go get a yo yo for a quarter of his own money if he wanted to, and then reminded him that we had a few friends having garage sales today and gave him the four dollars I owed him. Off he went on his bike wearing a backpack to carry things home in.

Nicholas wanted to go with his money too, but he hadn't finished picking up his room (which Jonathan had done before his brother even woke up I think), so he had to stay home. But, he was told that if he finished quickly maybe he and his dad would go out later to look at the garage sale toys.

Then I went to work.

Later in the day I got a text from dion with a picture of a bowling ball that said this is what came home.

I was in a meeting, so I couldn't call back right away, but I wasn't sure who it came home with. So I called Dion and said "please tell me you and nicholas went to garage sales and picked up that bowling ball." To which he replied, "nope, that was jonathan, he got a homemade cork gun too."

I about died laughing. Seriously? Can't you just see Jonathan riding around the neighborhood, checking out all the garage sales, and picking out... a bowling ball. I had a lot of fun trying to imagine how he got it home. Did he put it in his back pack and ride it home on his bike? Did he walk his bike and carry the ball?

When I got home tonight I had him show me everything he got. We added it all up. He spent $3.45. I would say that is a pretty good deal for his stash.

I also asked him to tell me about how he got the ball home. Apparently he paid for it, then realized that he couldn't get it home on his bike. So, he had them hold it, walked his bike home, and then walked back to get the ball.

I don't even know what to say. It is so funny. It is also so cute. It is also a little bit weird. But most of all it is just Jonathan. I would say that his first solo garage sale experience was a sweeping success.

This will be one of those stories that gets told over and over again. You know, the one that will be brought up at holiday dinners, told to the crowd on special occasions.... "remember the time when you were seven and you decided to spend your Friday morning out at garage sales on your bike and you came home with the bowling ball... and the cork gun?"