What's with the fascination with money?

My friend John posted recently that his son commented they could have a new car if only Daddy worked more.

The girls and I had lunch out at Pizzeria Uno yesterday. The check came, and after much card shuffling, I put lunch on my corporate Visa. I talked to a client while I was waiting for my salad...

"Where does money come from?" Lauren asked.

"Daddy and I work to make money." I replied.

"Oh," she said. "Well, I could work to make money."

"Doing what?"

"I could work on my laptop."

"That's a nice idea, honey. But right now your job is to play."

"But I want to work!"

"There's plenty of time to work. Besides, doing work isn't the hard part...it's finding someone to pay you to do it," I said.

"Well," Lauren said thoughtfully, "you could pay me."

And then this morning, Lauren marched into the kitchen while I was making myself some coffee and pouring her some Smart Start cereal (she calls them Mommy flakes), she announced, "When I am big like you, Mommy, do you know what's going to happen?"

"Nope..."

"Money is going to come out of my butt!" She looked excited about this.

"Uh...peanut, I'm sorry it doesn't work that way."

"Jess said that money comes out of her butt."

"Hmm..." Do I try to explain sarcasm to my 3 year old? "I think Jess was trying to be funny."

"Ok, Mommy. So money doesn't come out of your butt?"

"No, peanut. " Though sometimes I wish it did...