MARK MY WORD: PASS THE PLAY MONEY, BUSINESS AT HOME COULDN'T BE BETTER... OR SIMPLER

Business couldn't be better in our home. Just ask our kids.

In their mercantile world, wealth is easily acquired from their pretend bank.

They make frequent trips to the bank, cashing in on whatever coupons they can find that will serve as play money.

Becca and Bailey like it when I'm the banker. I'm a soft touch. I regularly hand out pretend cash to the girls when they stop by the make-believe bank in our dining room.

Of course, I always suggest they deposit some of their hard-earned pretend cash in the laundry basket bank, but they see little reason to deposit money. They prefer withdrawals to deposits.

Of course, they also like to do other business at the bank.

The other day, Becca stopped by the "bank" to have a pretend picture framed. She likes the idea of one-stop shopping where you can do everything from buy groceries to withdraw enough money for a play trip to Hawaii.

After her brief vacation, which lasted a few minutes, she returned to the bank. Naturally, I informed her that she had wiped out most of her bank account with her lavish trip.

She ignored that idea, preferring instead to return to her fun banking ways.

That's the great thing about pretend banking. You don't have to worry about insufficient funds and overdrawn checking accounts.

Besides, it's fun to spend all that play money.

Becca likes the real stuff too. She loves garage sales where a quarter actually buys something. We recently held a garage sale. Becca was up early so she could sell some of her Beanie Babies.

Still, she preferred to visit the neighbor's garage sale, coming away with a few odds and ends.

Playing store ranks right up there with dress-up and pretend school for Becca and Bailey. They could care less about sports unless, of course, it's cheerleading.

Becca and Bailey can really belt out the cheers, particularly when mom and dad are around to serve as a proper audience.

They also like to put on their own concerts for us with the volume turned way up on the stereo.

At least, they haven't chased away the birds. Singer Tina Turner's voice recently proved effective in scaring birds from Gloucestershire's airport in England.

Tapes of birds' distress sounds didn't work, but tapes of Turner's singing did the trick, frightening the birds off the runway.

Not every singer gets that kind of accolade.

For Becca and Bailey, singing isn't for the birds. It's for the love of life. For them, the show goes on in the living room whenever they can get an audience.

There is no end of fun stuff to do in their constantly changing career world.

The other day they pretended to be studio photographers, snapping each other's picture with their own creation of a toy camera. They even called me in for a sitting.

Having just had their pictures taken at a real studio, they had some idea how to go about the job.

But in their world, the photos were done instantly, drawings they made on small scraps of paper. No money changed hands in the living room-turned-studio.

It was a perfect transaction in a not-so-perfect world.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.