Lydia Takes the Leap

That evening after dinner, Lydia sat on her floor surrounded by papers covered in scribbled notes.

“Hmmmm…” Deep in thought and hunched over the paperwork, she read and reread her business strategy. “Should I make the flyer first or figure out something to sell?”

She eventually came to the conclusion that finding a few people for the club might take days and it would be better to make the flyers first. Grabbing a fat blue marker from her desk she wrote in huge letters: JOIN MY CLUB! No… that didn’t sound or look right. Starting on a new sheet of paper, she wrote: HEY FRIENDS! LET’S MAKE SOME MONEY! Then she doodled little dollar signs and money bags around the border of the page. She set the finished sign on her desk and took a couple steps back to check out her work. It looked like a 5-year-old made it. She probably had the worst handwriting in the whole school! She scrunched her nose and crumpled the sign into a ball and hurled it into the trash.

She wanted to give the illusion she was already a “professional” and a hand written sign just wouldn’t cut it. Lydia wanted to be taken seriously, so designing her club sign on the computer with help from her graphic design savvy mom would be perfect!

“Mooooooooooooooom! Mother! Mommmaaaaa! I need your help!” she shouted down the hallway.

Her mom hurried around the corner from the direction of the kitchen her eyes full of distress.

”What happened! What is it? Are you hurt?”

“Nope, just wanted a little help…”

“Lydia, must you always scream my name three different ways? Is that really necessary? I thought something had happened!” her mother scolded.

“Yes, it keeps your life interesting and you love it,” she giggled at her mom.

Her mother’s body relaxed and she sighed with a smile, tickling Lydia on the cheek. “There’s never a dull moment with you and your father around.”

She stepped into her daughter’s room being careful not to tread on any of the notes strewn across the floor as she made her way to the bed. “What can I help you with?”

“I would like to make my club flyers to hang around school on the computer. It will look more professional that way,” Lydia stated with certainty.

Her mom nodded her head in agreement and moved to the computer. “Ok, what would you like people to know about your club?”

Picking up a small stack of notes, she shuffled them around before answering. “I definitely want to have: JOIN MY CLUB, MAKE LOTS OF MONEY big and bold at the top of the flyer.”

“That’s a little misleading, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I guess it is…” Lydia went back to her notes. “Ok, how about: JOIN MY LITTLE BUSINESS CLUB! Let’s sell things and make money!”

Her mother nodded her head in agreement and clicked away at the keyboard. “When is your club going to meet?”

“Saturday afternoons at our house, if that’s ok with you?” She gave her mom the puppy dog look that didn’t work on dad earlier that evening but this time it worked like a charm.

“I think we can work it out for our little business woman,” she said with a wink and added the meet-up information to the flyer.

Together they found a couple of images to make the flyer really pop. After Lydia inspected her mother’s work, she went back to her notes with satisfaction.

“All I need now are some lines for people to sign their names on… can you add those to the flyer too please?”

“Of course,” she responded and used the mouse to create lines across the page.

Lydia gave her mother an enormous hug and proclaimed “Yay! It’s perfect! Thank you for helping me, I’ll print them out and hang them around school tomorrow.”

Her mother kissed her on the head, bid her good night and left a starry-eyed Lydia alone to daydream about the future.