Opening Day!!!

Ah, I finally feels like spring here. Opening Day has arrived, and I'm not talking baseball.  Here in New England on Boston's North Shore we have a little tradition called Todd's Farm Flea Market.  It opened today, to my surprise... I was thinking it was opening in a few weeks because my brain is still feeling like winter.  Anyways, I discovered this while cooking breakfast and told my kids. Their reaction is even more excited than mine...

Why and how are my kids excited to trudge through fields of mud to look at an endless  mix of great finds and random crap?

Great finds...

Mama likes.

random crap...

This is how, I know their weakness... cars. And at every flea market, junk shop, yard sale or thrift shop there is the occassional toy car.

So I make them work. Earn stars for chores. A star is worth 10 cents. They can cash them in and spend their hard earned coin when they wish, but they have learned they can get a bag full of old cars from the flea market for the same price as one new one from Toys-R-us. 

My older one has also learned charm goes along way and works an occassional freebie or two-for from the sweet old ladies.  Mom gets a clean house and gets to look at junk with out background whining, and kids get a life lesson and some crappy cars. WIN-WIN.