Questions Kids Ask: How do you know what money you have?

This past Tuesday my friend Jamie drove Whitney and me to the north suburbs of Chicago to visit four different groups of third graders there. We were in Deerfield as part of Educating Outside The Lines, a disability awareness program that uses a hands-on approach to help kids discover how things like wheelchairs, sign language, service dogs and Braille books are just tools we use to help do the things we do.

Reading Braille, slowly.

During our visits at Wilmot and Walden Elementary Schools Tuesday, I read a bit of my children’s book, Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in Braille and unfolded my collapsible white cane to show how it works. They listened to my iPhone read texts out loud, and I mimicked the robotic voice of the talking computer I use at home to write books, compose email messages, and…publish blog posts like this one! The questions asked during the Q&A part of the presentation sparked some very thoughtful conversation. Some examples:

• Does Whitney bark when she sees other dogs?
• You said you use that white stick when you go to baseball games, so which team do you like, the Cubs or the White Sox?
• What happens if your dog is too tired to help you?
• Was it shocking when the doctors told you you’d be blind the rest of your life?
• What do you do to keep yourself entertained?
• What system do you use to make your iPhone talk?
• Is it scary sometimes?
• How do you write books if you can’t see?
• When Whitney retires is she still going to live with you?
• How did you spend your weekend?
• When your eyes are open a long time do they start to hurt?
• Is it hard to travel?
• What if you get up at night, and your dog is sleeping, and you don’t have that white stick, and you need to go to the bathroom, but the bedroom door is closed and you walked right into it?
• What does your dog do during the weekends?
• Do you get sad sometimes?
• Are you going to watch the World Series tonight, and, if you are, which team are you backing, the Houston Astros or the Washington Nationals?
• Is your dog a mutt?
• What year was it when you got Whitney?
• How do you drive?
• How do you know what money you have?

About that money question: I keep track of paper money by folding each denomination differently. Twenties are folded in half, tens down to three-quarter size. Fives get the end folded into a triangle and singles I just leave be.

Just as I was starting to explain all that to the boy who’d asked, it dawned on me. I had my wallet with me. Why not just show them?

”Wow, I’m rich! I explained, fingering through my bills to find a stack that was folded in half. “Look at all these twenties!” I said, holding them up for all to admire.

“That’s not a twenty!” one nine-year-old called out. “That’s only one! Another joined in, and then I heard a chorus of numbers. ” “The other one is five!” “It’s a one, it’s another one, a bunch of ones!”

“Shit!” I thought. “What happened?” I said.

What had happened was this: On Monday I’d picked up prescriptions at Walgreen’s, the pharmacists were busy, people in line behind me were anxious, so rather than ask the cashier to call out each bill one at a time, I just accepted the pile, folded the bills in half and put them in my wallet. “I’ll have Mike help me go through these when he gets home,” I figured.

But I forgot.

”Oh, no!” I fessed up to the group of nine-year-olds. “I messed up. Can you guys help me?” They answered with a chorus of yeses, and one by one, I showed them a bill, they called out what each one was, I folded it correctly and placed it back in my wallet.

One of the many things I like kids to learn from our school visits is how good it feels to help others. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help when we need it, and we can learn from our mistakes.

My mess-up at Walgreen’s? It turned out to be a happy accident. I may just add the “What’s This bill?” game to my repertoire now.