Confession and a Happy Ending

After India sat in time out over and over and over again for the same thing (telling me no when I asked her to do something), I flipped and went overboard with consequences: No toys, no movies or cartoons, no friends - for an indefinite amount of time.  I finished picking up her messy room and moved all of the toys into my room.  I left her in bed sobbing.

Luckily, India's other parent was sane at the moment.  While I was still pouting and fuming, Ammon got India out of bed and cuddled her and talked to her about why she was upset and why we (he said we, even though I was the only upset lunatic) were upset.  Then we all came up with a plan of what India could do to earn back her privileges.  I'm sharing because Ammon and India sure have cute brains:

• wash dishes --- earns costumes
• sort, fold, and put away laundry --- earns toy drawers
• play with and read books to Maya --- earns cartoons/movies
• vacuum --- earns rocking horse
• email Grandpas and Grandmas --- earns playing with friends
• draw Daddy a picture --- earns backpack with tea set
• sweep floors --- earns play kitchen

India and I stayed up late because Maya will not stay in bed if India is in there.  While we're waiting, India is jumping up and down, making her heart go bouncy bouncy, which, she tells me, is the way to stop a heart attack.  I love my little problem-solver. And then the power goes out.    And all TEN smoke alarms go off.  And we found all TEN smoke alarms by the light of my cell phone and the ringing in our ears because a) I could not find a flashlight in our 72 hour kits, and b) when I finally did find a wind-up flashlight, it sucked.  And how did Maya and Belle (family dog we've inherited till she dies) sleep through that?  So there will be a few adjustments to our 72 hour kits.  Anyway, we found candles and glow-in-the-dark bracelets. (I am so stocking up on more of those).  India and I decided to have a sleepover on the couch, which was really fun besides her kneeing me in the eye nine times.

So I've got a lot of work to "oversee" today.  I wish I had had the foresight to also assign India Project Poop this morning.  However, Maya is now in the bathtub, and India and I have a lot of air freshening and laundering to do.