Bribery

I swear sometimes the only way to make it through a day with your sanity and your kids intact is to bribe your way through the day from the moment they wake up until that victorious moment when they both finally fall asleep for the night.

Bribery is not what I consider to be "bad" parenting, more of an "unappreciated tool" that parents should use in moderation. Like drinking. Delicious, but only once per day OR one heavily used day per month.

We started the morning off strong with a slobbery teething monster somewhat resembling my younger son. Camden is funny when he's crabby. He doesn't really cry. He especially doesn't fuss. He just yells at us. One moment he'll be laughing, then suddenly: "BAHHH!!! BAAHHH!!! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" which I believe I'm pretty accurate at translating to: "Hey!! I'm cranky and my teeth hurt and make me happy NOW or I'm going to destroy your house!"

And because I can see that crazed look in the Caminator's eye, I took him seriously. And bribed him with a bright educational dopamine called Sesame Street. All morning. (Hey, it kept Calen out of trouble too. And I got a ton of housework done!)

A little Sesame Street to start the day with

Calen actually didn't need much bribery today. (Except for that one time when he didn't want to stop swimming in the pool for the fourth day in a row and go inside until I mentioned "Otter Pops" and he was like "DONE" and came inside faster than a golfer in a lightning storm). He even wrote his name in sidewalk chalk for the very first time ever! Okay so I told him which letters were next..but he wrote them out ALL by himself and I must say for his very first time writing letters I was quite impressed!

Calen's first attempt at writing! He did pretty good! (it's supposed to be his name)

Back to more bribery. Brad was pulling beer out of the freezer and Cam apparently reached in and snatched a frozen Otter Pop without any of us noticing. Until he toddled into the living room munching on it (thank the LORD those things are more impossible to open than pickle jars or my entire house would be engulfed in bright red sticky syrup disaster). I tried to take it away from him and replace it with a pretty awesome toy car. 

"BAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! BABABABABABABAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

WRONG idea Mom. 

So I obediently gave it back to him. Which makes me wonder, who is bribing who? I have a feeling my 14 month is bribing me. "I'll be calm and happy if you give me that Otter Pop!"

Do NOT get in the way of him and his Otter Pop!

But then the tables turned on him when I threw him outside and plopped him on a toy motorcycle to get a picture (WITHOUT the Otter Pop, which really pissed him off), but then I waved the Otter Pop behind the camera hoping he would grin at the sight of it, but he didn't smile and instead yelled at me to give it back. 


This one is going to give me trouble. I can tell. 

I didn't give him the Otter Pop back. He finally settled down so that I ALMOST got a good picture. (and then promptly gave him his Otter Pop back) I'll give it another shot tomorrow. 

 

  

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