So last month when I was in the middle of crazy work mode trying to do umpteen things at once, I needed a way to try and keep the kids from bothering me ALL. THE. TIME. I mean yes, I still had to be around for them, but they are old enough to understand “Mom is working, you don’t need to interrupt me every 13 seconds with something stupid.” The final straw came when, one day, I was trying to watch a training video and the kids were playing near me and kept asking me things which meant I had to stop the video then rewind it—over and over. And Owen finally asked me why the lady kept repeating herself! And I had to tell them that she was NOT repeating herself—I just had to keep replaying it because they kept interrupting me.
So I came up with the Family Reward. I set a sales goal for the month and told them that if I (we!) met that goal, we got to go on a reward that they picked. So every time I was working or told them I was busy working they would know that I was working toward the FAMILY GOAL and they shouldn’t bother me. They picked McDonald’s, bowling, and video games by dad’s work. Fine, great, easy peasy. And within the first 10 minutes of showing them the page I had printed and tacked to the wall, Katie was interrupting to ask me something and Owen shushed her, pointed to the sign, and said “MOM IS WORKING!” 🙂
I managed to reach my goal before the end of the month and they made us crazy wanting to go RIGHT THEN AND THERE. But we could obviously only go on the weekends and then we had company so it didn’t work out right away. So this weekend was the first real chance we had. So it was off to base for their reward for “helping mom reach her sales goal” in April by “not bothering mom when she’s working.”
The fancy pants bowling alley lets you take a photo and put it on your scoreboard!
Katie wanted them to be judges.
I came in last place. But I didn’t get to use the bumpers. And it takes me a full game to get warmed up and we only played one game. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
She wanted to play basketball and I begrudgingly let her—it was her reward, after all (they each for $5 in quarters for the games). And holy crap can she throw! I was helping her out, but she was making baskets! It was something to behold.
They had a great time and we are glad we did it. After, we went out and got lunch for us (we weren’t wasting calories on McDonald’s)…