Santa's watching

Yes, you read correctly. Santa. Yes, it is only October 2nd. Yes, the bribery has begun in our house. We didn't really mean for it to happen. And I'm not even really sure it will last all the way until Christmas, but we're doing it. We're using "Santa's watching" as our current behavior tactic, in October.

A little girl (let's call her Chloe) who lives next door has been visiting fairly often the past few weeks and her room and Charlotte's room are across the way from each other. Every day Charlotte looks out her window and sees Chloe's doll house and they are always talking to each other about it - mostly because Charlotte brings it up. So, she has decided that she wants one of her own and that turned into her asking us for one. We told her that maybe she could ask Santa for it when Christmas came, not realizing she wouldn't let it go. We should have known better. This is really the first year she can understand the concept of Santa, so we explained to her how it works. How Santa will watch her and that she needs to be good...and then she started responding to it. She could be in the middle of a fit or about to do something she really shouldn't and you could say, Santa wouldn't like that...and she just stops. It's amazing. How could we not use this?? Like I said, it might not last all the way until December, but for now, it is definitely helping out.

I know she'll be continuously trying to convince us that her behavior doesn't matter and that she should get presents anyway. Or she'll be thinking up some plans on how to get around this whole behavior thing...because that's just what she does. She started the other day. She picked up the phone and pretended she was talking to someone. When we asked her who it was she said "Santa." Then I asked her what he said and she shouted "Give me a doll house!" Sooo, we'll so how this thing plays out! :-)