Wednesday Market

We are in Vermont visiting Nenny & D-Pa, my inlaws. D-Pa sells gorgeous hand turned wooden bowls at the Woodstock Farmer’s Market, and he loaned the front corner of his tent to Rebecca, to sell a handful of lavender dolls and lavender wands. She helped make them, although not really enough, since we only had that morning to make them and I was experimenting with the process anyway. But she did sell them herself! This picture is from just after we set up, and she is feeling shy. D-Pa gave her some selling advice, like, oh, smile, would you? Heh. She did let people take her picture holding the doll when they bought it, which for her is an enormous concession. I was surprised, but she’s growing up! She knew she needed to do it for the customer. I’m glad I remembered to have her put on a clean shirt!

She sold all three of the lavender dolls, and two of the three lavender wands. I was SO glad that someone bought the lavender doll that she had drawn the face on. It was really more of a scribble than a face. Although, actually, she might have been just as happy to take it home to play with. I don’t think she has any concerns that people might not like her faces, and in her mind perhaps they are just as nice as the ones I draw. So now I have to figure out if I should help her learn how to draw ‘nicer’ faces on her small wooden beads, or if that would just make her feel like she couldn’t do it. Tricky tricky, she’s really sensitive about being corrected. We’ll be here for another 3 markets, so we’ll see if she even wants to make something for next week.

After the market we went to the drug store and she bought a stretchy plastic duck. And I thought, sure, I’m teaching her about making and selling things, and natural rewards for working, but why oh why does she have to have such different taste in toys than I do? Sigh. I’m sure my mother wondered the same thing.

Things to work on:
Rebecca doing most of the making, even if they don’t look as nice.
Teaching Rebecca about giving change… young 4 may not be old enough for this, but we should try some play-acting. She could just ask how much money she needed to give back.
Getting her a money board to clip her bills on to help with figuring out change, or just a wallet to collect it in.

Does anyone want a tutorial about how to make lavender dolls? You can find the lavender wands over at 5 Orange Potatoes, although we skipped the ribbon this time, so they aren’t very practical, really.