The Pennies

Our kids' table manners have been on the decline. I'd blame it on them outnumbering us, but really, we've just grown a little lax. Constant in-and-out of seats, "eat.your.food."s from us, pestering each other, etc. Finally, thinking as I was talking, I contrived an idea the other night during dinner. Each child is given 3 pennies at the beginning of the meal. Each time they have to be reminded to sit, eat, stay, or be nice, we take a penny. Three pennies gone = clearing the table by yourself and cleaning the kitchen (with help from mom) till it sparkles. Three pennies remaining = a treat.

External motivation only works for a limited amount of time. The idea is to use it to change habits. It's worked beautifully with Lily. She gets it and has been a dinner-time pleasure ever since. Mason, on the other hand, is mostly concerned that he's losing money. Pennies=money, you know.

So tonight, the score was 1-1. We had earned two pennies, and each kid had two pennies left. Suddenly, we heard and saw a *gag* from Mason. And then he looked up with wide eyes. "I think I just swallowed my pennies."

"You what?? Were they in your cup? Seriously??!"

Then the wide eyes slowly turned into a smirk. "I guess you can't steal my pennies now!"

We all laughed long and hard about that one. I guess not, buddy.

Five minutes later, Mason tells us his "back hurts" because the pennies are stuck back there so he cannot clear the table. Shandy decides to play along and tells him his face is looking a little brown. "Why?" he asks.

"Well, because you swallowed those pennies."

Mason's shoulders slumped. He hung his head. "Ohhh, darn it!"

And we all laughed long and hard again. These are the days of our lives.