for about fifteen years i've kept a large glass coin-jug on my dresser. at the end of each day i drop my loose change into it. about once a year i pour the contents onto the floor in front of a movie and roll my bounty. the collection typically amounted to several hundred dollars. since bella became old enough to request the jug be handed to her my annual accounting has dropped from the just under five hundred realm to the just above forty dollar range because you see bella likes playing with coins. bella likes playing with coins a whole lot.

one of her favorite treatments is to sticker the coins. how this works is she will empty the jug onto the floor and go through them one by one checking each side. coins that already have a small random sticker on them go in one pile, coins that have no mark go in another. once divided, she places a sticker on each coin in the stickerless pile and when done returns all the coins back into the jug. such an audit, which occurs about once a month, can take anywhere from one to three hours and is typically spread over a full day.

bella has it in her mind that i get paid at the end of each work day with a small handful of change. she thinks the size and diversity of the mix indicates how hard i worked. if i tinkle a large handful of coins into her cupped hands she proudly says "boy dad, you sure must have worked hard on this day!". a telling thing about bella is when i have just a few or no coins to share she doesn't harangue me but quietly accepts the news, maybe even giving me a commiserating "that's ok dad, we've already got lots of coins". criminally precious.

several months ago a relative of mine, cousin debbie, was in town and staying with my folks. we went over one night for dinner and bella became quite smitten with her (that my forty-something cousin would hang out with bella under the dining room table played a great role in this friendship). when it came time for us to leave, bella very seriously told cousin debbie she should come live with us because it would be lots of fun. debbie gracefully declined saying she wouldn't want to impose. bella cheerily said it was not a problem because we were rich, 'we have piles of money in every room of our house.' truth told, that is a correct statement. although a minor omitted detail is the aforementioned piles range in value from $1.34 to $12.75 depending on how much bella lost sight of and how much you're able to find.