For The Love Of Polly Pockets

Our kids are only slightly spoiled but just to the right amount and mostly at the hands of an extremely loving grandmother.  We don’t give them an allowance for doing chores because right now I want them to help because they are part of the family, not because we are paying them to do it. So yesterday when Mr. Byrd told them girls that they would each get a new Polly Pocket if they helped bag up the branches we were pruning off of some plants outside, they went crazy. Those girls worked hard and with determination to be able to go get a new Polly Pocket doll. But of course, that kinda led us as parents to the joy of finding ways to bribe our children. Ok that’s just a joke but of course we kept taking it a step further… and a step further… First they bagged up all the branches that we had pruned. But then of course there was a lot of sticks and pinecones in the yard from the last big storm so we told them that we wouldn’t be going to the store to get a Polly Pocket until it was all picked up. Notice we did not say, “You won’t get one after all”, we never went back on our word. We just found ways to reword it. Parents of the Year. Later it became, “come stomp on this freshly dug up dirt if you want to go tonight to get Polly Pocket.”, and then ” the entire upstairs has to be picked up if you want to go to Target when we go get dinner in a few minutes”. But I guess we pushed it too far because about that time they fun wore off and they did not pick up the upstairs. We had to stay strong on our highly diluted word so we didn’t go get them a Polly Pocket while we were out last night. Parents of the Year (again). Of course when we got home we told them that we would go this morning if they got the upstairs picked up before bed, which they did. So after one epic game of hide and go seek in which Mr. Byrd hid under the pile of clean clothes on the couch, they went to bed and I woke up this morning to kids surrounding my bed asking, “when are we going to get our Polly Pockets?”. So once I finally get clean clothes out of the dryer (Laundress of the Year), we are hopping in the van and heading to Target to get dog food, cat treats and of course, Polly Pockets.     Disclaimer: The pictures are affiliate links. Just FYI because being truthful in all things is a great lesson for kids.