Lemonade!

The boys are obsessed with lemonade stands. It started a few weeks ago when the kids that live across the street were setting up their own lemonade stand. Our neighborhood is bursting with kids, but there is a big concentration of younger kids right next to our house with about ten children under the age of ten living within a five house cluster. My boys haven’t really joined the gangs of kids roaming the street, even when it is a group of kids their age playing right across the street. They prefer to stay in their own backyard, playing their own games. The boys play with the neighborhood kids at parties and neighborhood bbqs, but otherwise, they are still a little hesitant about jumping in.

Until the lemonade stand. The sight of that stand and all that signage was too much for Griffin. He wanted in. He begged Brennan to go with him. Brennan refused. He begged Aidan to go with him. Aidan refused, and instead went off for a bike ride around the block.

Griffin stood on our driveway just watching that lemonade stand and the gang of kids, desperate to get in on the action. (And it was all of 100 feet away from our house. But still, he couldn’t do it without his brothers.) Finally after I couldn’t take it any longer, I took pity on G and walked him across the street, promising to stay with him until he felt comfortable.

Brennan stayed in our front yard, digging in dirt, but watching us out of the corner of his eyes. Finally, after several minutes had passed, Brennan wanted to join in the lemonade fun too. And when Aidan returned from his bike ride and also wanted to sell some lemonade, all three felt confident enough that I could return home.

The lemonade stand was a hit. We live in a neighborhood of very kind people. Almost every single car that drove past stopped to purchase a lemonade. My favorite moment was when my grandmother drove by, saw the stand, and stopped to purchase a cup. She pulled into our driveway to chat with me while she waited for her cup to be delivered. Brennan ran over to her with her cup of lemonade in one hand and a fistful of ice cubes squeezed into the other hand.

“Nana! Did you want ice in your lemonade?” Brennan asked, opening his fist to show her the ice cubes melting up against his dirty, grubby six year old hands.

“Um, no. I’m good without ice.” She responded, swallowing a chuckle, but throwing me a smile.

“Good call.” I told her, laughing out loud.

At the end of the day of lemonade, each child brought home their share of the profits from the neighborhood stand. Each child made $10. $10!!!! There were like 8 kids running that stand, which if you do the math (and I never like to do the math) means that their little stand brought in almost a $100.

It’s a racket!

So of course, they wanted to do it again. Who wouldn’t? So today, with the assistance of their kind babysitter for the day, my cousin Bridget, the boys opened up their own lemonade stand in our driveway.

And made $8 each for about an hour of sales. Bridget told me she couldn’t believe it.

“Everyone who drove by stopped. And most of them just gave them a dollar or a few people even gave them $5, and told them to keep the change. The lemonade stand is a money maker!” She told me when I got home.

Indeed it is. Lemonade for everyone!