The Piggybanks

The last time Grandpa Charles and Grandma Connie visited, they brought Joe a piggy bank.  It was translucent blue plastic.  It proved so popular, they got an identical one in pink for Clara and shipped it up to us.  The piggies lived on the top shelf of one of the downstairs bookcases.  The keen-eyed among you, Dear Readers, will have no doubt noted the use of the past tense verb in that last sentence.  That is because a little over a week ago, Joe decided to bring his pig down, but it had so many coins in it, it had gotten rather heavy, and it slipped from his hands and shattered.  Coins rolled everywhere.  Joe SCREAMED.  Birdie promptly and very sweetly squatted down and shuffled about like a little crab trying to pick up coins, but it was some minutes before Joe could talk.  Julie called Grandpa Charles later that night to report the accident and ask if he would round up another a bring it with him to Clara's birthday weekend festivities.  Julie learned from Grandma Connie that Grandpa Charles called her to say that "there'd been a disaster in Minneapolis."  Grandma Connie said her heart dropped, and while this was no doubt not what she had in mind, to Joe's way of thinking, disaster probably wasn't overstating it.

Joe's scheckels had been living in a plastic Ziploc container, but Grandpa Charles came through!  He and Grandma Connie also brought a Ziploc bag of change.  We now know for certain that there is nothing like a pile of change and two piggy banks to keep our bambini busy.  Here they are this morning on the porch socking what remained after yesterday's deposits into their piggies.

We should add that Joe informs us that when his is full, he intends to buy himself an angry bird.  We should also like to add that he has never seen the angry birds game before in his life, and probably doesn't even know it is a game, and that all we can figure is one of his classmates brought one of thsoe stuffed angry birds that are now as ubiquitous as the game was in for show 'n' share and Joe took a shine to it.