On Tuesday my daughter and I went to the zoo. She'd recently squashed my sunglasses, so we stopped at the local Walgreens to find a new pair of cheap mommy sunglasses. On the way into the store I noticed a dollar sitting on the sidewalk. I said, "Hey look! A dollar!" She reached down and picked it up - unsure of its importance. Had it been a quarter she would have been ecstatic, but as of yet, I've avoided giving her bills. I said, "That is pretty neat - a whole dollar, you should put it in your pocket and use it at the zoo to ride the carousel." She was pleased with this, but still looked at the dollar like it was funny paper that she should not keep because clearly, it was not really hers.
When we went in to Walgreens I looked at a few items. In the hair accessory aisle she set the dollar next to other green items and said, "Look match." When I'd selected my clip, I said, "Ok. Next we need to buy daddy some shaving cream. Let's go!" She said, "Shaving peam?" while following me out of the aisle with no dollar in hand. I stopped and said, "What about your dollar?" She replied, "Oh." She found it next to a green hair brush and said, "I found it!" In each aisle we visited she did the same thing, set it down, walked away from it to play with something else and then forgot about its existence completely.
At the checkout she did everything she could to pay for my things with her single dollar. She handed it directly to the cashier, she set it next to the cashiers hand, she waved it in the air like a little flag. Finally I kneeled and said, "Hunny, that dollar belongs to you now. You found it and you can keep it." She said, "Ok Mama." Certain the child understood the situation, I paid and we left. Once outside I said, "You're dollar is in your pocket, right?" She replied, "No." We turned around and found the dollar resting on a shelf near the exit.
So now I'm a dollar richer and she "found" a quarter in the car and can't stop talking about putting it in her piggy bank. Problem solved.