Working At the Car Wash (Wash, Wash)
Greetings to everyone.
Sorry for the 70's retro disco reminder in the title.
Fridays are cleaning the house days. Xavier helps Rebecca with cleaning and earns a couple of dollars for his efforts (when his efforts are worth a couple of dollars, of course; none of that "no-score" soccer mentality fostered here).
This morning, Xavier really earned his dollar for cleaning up his toys in Middle Earth. Rebecca did not have to move anything out of the way to vacuum, and all his toys got put in his toy bins. They were not in the bins in an orderly way, but in the bins none-the-less. He also did a dollar-worthy job on his room.
We keep Xavier's money he earns in a Mason jar on his desk. He can see it, and we are helping him understand the relationship between work effort and dollar value, as well as costs and choices in buying toys.
Xavier's primary focus for his dollars are two things: "sharks," which refer to any kind of toy with jaws that open and close when squeezed, and Hot Wheels, cars and accessories.
Xavier has grown obsessed with car washes these past few weeks. Perhaps, because he has sat through a couple of them in these last couple of weeks. He gets really excited with all the water and rollers and dryer action as the car progresses through the stages of the wash.
I introduced Xavier to Hot Wheels YouTube videos last week. Who knew the monster that lurked behind sharing that piece of knowledge?! Xavier obsesses with watching these videos; we've seen them all at least twice!
Then, as he has gained a workable enough understanding of how to use the remote control for the TV YouTube app, he came across Hot Wheels Car Wash play sets. We've seen every car wash play set video at least a half dozen times. He'll watch for a while, getting more and more amped up, then have to run out to play with his own cars. Then, he comes back and watches again, only to run out excitedly and play with his setups.
Well, this morning, after cleaning up his room and play areas, Xavier came to Rebecca and wanted to build a car wash for his Hot Wheels. He knew he needed several things: a track to carry the cars, a tunnel for the cars to go through, sprayers to wash and rinse the cars, rollers to roll the cars and "leaf blowers" (dryers) to dry the cars.
As he listed these items off to Rebecca, he held in his hand a bunch of track; he did not know where to get the other parts he needed.
Mama, being the genius that she is, suggested using his six foot nylon tunnel for the tunnel. She also got a roll of paper towels and some toilet paper rolls for the rollers.
They put everything together. They improvised with other toy parts the sprayers and "leaf blowers." Xavier has spent the day running his cars through his car wash, often re-configuring parts of it as he thinks of new ideas.
And, yes, Xavier does sing "Working at the car wash, wash, wash" sometimes as he plays.