Tough Love

I swear yesterday I thought my daughter had completely lost her mind. My son had been cooped up in the house most of the week because of the flu and had a serious case of cabin fever. We did go for a ride Thursday because the weather was just PERFECT. They wanted to play outside yesterday, but had to clean their rooms first. The boy got finished first (huge surprise for me), and I sent him out. Then the girl child said she was finished so I went up to check hers.

While I was in there I noticed this big black spot in the middle of her floor. Asked her what it was, and she stood there and shrugged her shoulders, saying she didn't know. How in the world is a big black spot going to just appear in the middle of her floor and she doesn't know where it came from? I could tell she was lying to me. So I came back downstairs, telling her I expected an explanation before she could go outside to play. She came down a few minutes later.

Her: I remember how that black got on my floor.

Me: OK...how?

Her: Well, I wanted to draw a picture yesterday and I had a black marker that I wanted to see if it worked.

Me: So you decided to test it ON THE FLOOR???

Her: Yes. (Could tell by the look on her face she knew she was in trouble now)

Me: Have you lost your mind? What would possess you to do that? (Then she starts crying) You need to go up to your room and think about what you've done.

OK, maybe I shouldn't have said it like that, but that was exactly how it seemed. And I'm thinking at this point that she has made yet ANOTHER mess that her daddy and I are going to have to clean up. Then I thought...oh HELL no!! I'm tired of cleaning up mess after mess that she and her brother decide to make...and so is their daddy.

So I called her downstairs and found one of those sponges that has soap already in it, wet it for her, and told HER to go upstairs and clean up the spot. Told her to wet the sponge more when she needed to. After a few minutes, she called down asking me if she had to clean it ALL up. When I told her yes, she said "UGGHHHH...it's gonna take all day!" Yeah, that's kinda the point.

After about an hour or so of much crying and complaining, stomping, banging, and other noisy protesting, she came down and very politely asked me if I would come and look at how much she had gotten cleaned up. So I went up to look, and this HUGE black spot had been reduced to a very small spot that probably won't be obvious to someone who doesn't know it's there. So I told her she had done a great job and could go outside and play. We also talked about how frustrated Mommy gets when she and her brother make messes like that and I have to clean them up. I'm really hoping that she has learned a lesson that will make her think twice about doing something like that again. I'm still not sure why in the world she tested a marker on her carpet. She certainly knows better than that. I can't count how many times we've stressed to her that she's not to color on anything except paper and coloring books. Just like most kids, they've done their share of coloring on the walls. I thought she had mostly outgrown that.

We'll see if this incident has done the trick.