What's going on? Did I just feed my girls dessert FIRST while Doug and I ate a really good dinner? Yup. They earned it. We're trying a new reward system and it's working wonderfully. The girls earn "stickers" for various things, and there is a reward chart for accumulated stickers. After earning 30 stickers, they can choose to eat dessert for dinner and dinner for dessert for one night, or play on barbie.com for 20 minutes. They chose dessert!
They earn stickers for things like: cleaning the bathroom sinks, emptying the dishwasher, putting away clean clothes, reading for 20 minutes, working in school workbooks, yard work, clearing and cleaning the dining room table, swiffering bathroom floors, swiffering bedroom floors, 15 minutes of cleanup, gather trash upstairs, having a good morning (meaning getting dressed, eating breakfast, making their bed before asking for TV or computer without being pestered to do it) etc. At ages 6 and 4, I think they're doing great! Though I hear occasionally, "Why do we have to clean our house? Gabriella (Nikki's friend) has a cleaning lady to clean her house. She doesn't have to do anything!" My response is always, "it's good to know how to do this for yourself. It's what we do as family members - we're a team!" etc. They're not buying it, so I also said the only way to earn the sticker is to do the job cheerfully. No grumping and complaining. They are actually very good about it most of the time and are proud of their work.
Dinner last night was really delicious - I tried a new recipe for a Tuscan Chicken with rosemary, garlic and lemon. I made potatoes and green beans with olive oil, salt, and fresh lemon thyme from the garden. I also sliced tomatoes and green peppers and served it with fresh basil, also from the garden. Even though Nikki had icecream with smarties and Caroline had a popsicle for dinner, they both devoured the chicken and vegetables afterwards! The recipe will go in my cookbook due out this Christmas. If you have any good recipes, email me! I'm always looking for something new!
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