The wrong one is catching on.

Remember my great! new! fantastic! idea to get my girls (and one in particular) to start listening so I could stop yelling? Wait a minute – I think it was so I could stop yelling and they would start listening. In any matter, remember the Two Jars to Rule Them All theory? It debuted at Casa de Katie this weekend.

I pre-briefed the girls last week so they would know what was coming. (And also because when I get a great idea, I have to share it.) So Saturday we set out in the pouring rain to run our errands, including stopping at a craft store to get a few small canning jars and some colored marbles. Bee and Gracie were very excited. Of course, they are always the little optimists. “I promise I’ll pick up next time!” “I’ll never do that again, Mom, I promise!” “I can’t believe I did that!” etc., etc. So of course they didn’t see how this House Points system could backfire on them; they were already dreaming of what they would choose when they cashed in a quickly filled jar of marbles.

Yeah, Saturday ended with empty jars. I tried really, really hard to help them fill their jars. Really, I did. My plan was that I would reward just about anything with a marble to help them catch marble-fever. They put their shoes on by themselves? A marble for you! You cleared your place without me having to remind you? Marble! But then Saturday afternoon exploded all over my house and no one wanted to clean. The third time I had to tell Bee to stop playing and pick up the same toy? She lost a marble. When Gracie lied to me even after I caught her? She lost a marble, too. One thing led to another and by dinner time, no one had any marbles. Thankfully, Mike called and invited us out for a quick dinner. On one hand, I was afraid to think of what that would mean. Bee was crying and Gracie was sitting in time-out when he called. But going out would guarantee that I couldn’t kill my beloved children for at least two whole hours, so I accepted. Aside from Gracie spilling her soda all over herself, the girls were awesome. So they did earn a marble apiece after all.

Thank god I have a short memory. Or maybe I’m just so foggy and caffeine deprived in the mornings that I really, really want to do anything to keep the kids happy and sitting in front of the television while I wake up. Ahem. Either way, I rewarded Gracie and Bee with a marble for skipping the Up-and-Down Bedtime Brigade routing the night before and one for remembering to stay in bed until 7:00 a.m. without asking me. They kinda liked that I guess. Wait – let me amend that. ONE of them caught on. Gracie spent all of Sunday asking if x, y, or z would earn her a marble. She put away all of her and Bee’s laundry. She folded pajamas and picked up their room. She vacuumed with the dustbuster. She took out the recycling. She played with her sister (at Bee’s request) instead of helping me make cupcakes. That girl was on it. Total success.

Bee? The girl-child for whom I thought up this whole crazy scheme? Yeah, she still needed constant supervision to pick up her toys. She maybe was physically walked into the front room and closed in there a few times because she refused to pick up. She might have even asked me to throw her toys away. Then, after I allowed Gracie to watch a movie on her bed with the portable DVD player for picking up her half of the mess, Bee suddenly saw the light. She became a cleaning machine. She enjoyed getting the marbles, but it was still just a matter of her wanting to clean up that did the trick.

Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning my plan. It might just take a while to take ahold of their wee little minds. But I really hope Bee’s future spouse enjoys cleaning.

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Tags: cleaning, parenting