How Many Cheerios Can Fit In...

I noticed Angelo this morning had a cup full of Cheerios in the downstairs living room but didn't give it a second thought since he was snacking on them as he normally does. However, later while I was sitting downstairs I heard him proudly proclaiming that his brother's sword was full. I apprehensively shouted upstairs to him, "Full of what"? After receiving no response I ascended the stairs fearing the worst. When he saw me and ducked behind the couch I knew the answer couldn't be good. The pile of smashed Cheerios that littered the floor confirmed my suspicion. Sure enough Angelo had packed about three dozen Cheerios into the hilt and the sword sounded like a maraca when swung.

Needless to say Angelo ended up in his room in timeout which I could tell hurt his feelings. I went to the bathroom with the sword and shook it until all the Cheerios came out in the sink (about 2 minutes). After doing so I went in to Angelo's room and explained that I wasn't mad at him, but that I was disappointed that he was wasting food and made a huge mess. Had he stuffed the sword with anything else (Legos, Playmobil pieces etc.) I would not have been angry at all and it would have demonstrated an advanced understanding of spatial relationships and problem solving skills. He understood and gave me a big hug and the playing continued...this time without Cheerios.

This is not the first time we have found food upstairs. My two little Houdinis always manage to pilfer food out of the refrigerator or pantry while we aren't looking and sneak away with it. The remnants we normally find include half-eaten bananas, wrappers, apple cores etc. As a result we are now enforcing a strict no food upstairs policy to combat the covert food legerdemain. We are also considering a pad lock on the refrigerator and and a biometric lock for the pantry. Retinal scan anyone? With a third mini-man appetite on the horizon now may be a good time to look into food security.

Expectation Chart = Obedience

We figured it was time for the kids to begin earning allowances (at least the two older ones anyway) so Misty went to the store and procured a simple dry erase chore chart that we now prominently display on the refrigerator door. Amazing that just today we began setting chores for the kids and to our collective amazement the children immediately began to fall in line. Chores for the boys are relatively simple but definitely show cognitive ability beyond our wildest hopes. Non-negotiable responsibilities are as follows: make bed, put dishes in the dishwasher, clean up toys. Bonus responsibilities include being nice to each other/no timeouts for the day, eating dinner promptly.

I can proudly say that both boys were 5 for 5 today. Amazing what putting the key responsibilities on paper and objectively measuring performance against the expectations will get you...or is it? I spend most of my day finding ways to inspect what I expect from my job. Children are no different from adults in this respect it seems. Individuals will continuously push the envelope as far as they can until someone pushes back. Our push back today was to employ an expectation chart. For my job it is done with spreadsheets but the principle is the same. Tell people the metrics against which they will be measured and then actually measure them.

The payoff for the boys: we agreed to pay them each $1 per week if they receive checks for the non-negotiables. The bonus adds an additional TBD amount at the discretion of the parents that is subjective and depends perhaps most importantly on how much cash Daddy has in his wallet at the end of the week.

Antonio wants to save his money for more Playmobil figurines. He loves checking off the boxes at the end of the day. He is a trail-blazing rule-following excited little boy who can't wait to do what is expected of him to earn both praise and check marks. Angelo wants to ensure that he has at least as many checks as Antonio. Any questions, see earlier post titled "Making Sibling Rivalry Work for You."