Monday, August 30, 2010

Claire can tie her shoes ...


and her roller skates!!! Independently. Whoo-hoo!!!


I will take a time out from my celebratory dance to admit to something. I bribed her. Yes I did.


Not only her .. but her older siblings as well. You see, Claire is a bit of a middle child. I apologize if you don't believe in that whole "birth order" thing ... but I've lived it ... and around here ... it's the gospel.


The middle child in Claire manifests itself in a little bit of a confidence problem and a little bit in the "just tell me what to do so I don't have to exert a lot of effort in thinking about it" phenomena. She also really loves to do things on her own time schedule ... which is a bit more of a problem now that an ENTIRE day of Kindergarten fills her dance card five days per week.


Other kids in the class have begun to tie their shoes. She has to ask one of her sibs (or me) to tie her roller skates ... worn every day. It was starting to irk her .. but not enough to really do much about it.


Hence the bribery. She has asked for a pillow pet forever. For. Ever. We bargained. Tie your shoes ... get a pillow pet. Deal signed. Pinky sworn.


We tried. We cried. We gave up.


I realized I had to bring in the big guns. Emma and Grayson. I tried appealing to their Christian sides. Jesus would most certainly want them to help their sister. That worked. For a day.


So I bribed them. Don't judge me. Whoever succeedes in helping their sister tie her shoes ALSO gets a pillow pet. Or the cash it would cost. Minus shipping and handling (yep... Emma asked).


In three short days ... she has learned. It's not fast ... it's not yet automatic. But I no longer have to do it. To me, that's worth a few pillow pets. And you should see my middle child smile.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

So... now that Claire can tie her own shoes, is there more roller skating going up and down stairs? :)

Save yourself shipping. CVS has pillow pets.

Nicole - Life in Progress said...

Way to go Claire! What is the deal with these pillow pets. I had never even heard of them until recently when Charlotte requested a purple frog pillow pet for Christmas....that shouldn't be too hard to find! Let me know if you ever come across one!

Anonymous said...

you need to pull those shorts and knickers aside show me your lovely bald pussy I would love to lick it for you