Let's Make a Deal

One day last week Cat needed to pick up about 15 things in her room. It took her 2 1/2 hours, and wasn't until the threat of not getting to take a bath that she finally finished. The next day, I discovered a stockpile of random items in Cat's closet. I decided rather than repeat the previous day's agony of hours of reminding and trying to give incentives, I would chop the task into manageable sections. But Cat wasn't having it. Instead of just doing the portion I asked her to do, she continued to ask me to help her. Since "I didn't make the mess" apparently wasn't a good enough reason for her anymore, I came up with the excuse, "I can't help you because it's my job to fold this laundry." She solved that problem: she offered to trade jobs with me. I knew that picking up the items in her closet would take me less time than folding the laundry, so I took her up on the offer. And guess what, she did exactly what she was supposed to do. And it only took her about 15 minutes. AND she was incredibly proud of her accomplishment. She's folded laundry before, but never so much, and never as a way of getting out of cleaning her room. This time, it worked out well!

(Note: please disregard Jack's FSU cheerleading outfit. Sometimes it's just a little too tempting to let him in on the dress-up action too! In my defense, I tried to just take a picture of Cat, but once he saw me get the camera out, he deliberately moved into the photo zone.)

The next day, I told her to clean up the next portion of the junk storage receptacle, err, closet. Just as I expected, she asked if she could fold laundry instead. That day, though, I had already finished with the laundry. She's got to fulfill her own responsibilities sometimes, right?