My kids make me laugh

• Kaylee is 6. She is starting to figure out what we as parents have been able to get away with for years......bribery! We started giving her allowance for vacuuming 3 times a week. She must vacuum the upstairs once, the downstairs once, and the entire house once per week in order to earn her $2. Last week, she did soo good. I was so proud of her. We didn't even have to ask her, she just did it, and she was excited about doing it too! Well, Friday, she went and disappeared to her room for almost an hour. She came downstairs and told me that she had cleaned her room....ALL.BY.HERSELF. I took a peek and WOW!!!! She not only cleaned it, but she made her bed, and organized, and dusted, and everything.

Saturday, it was allowance time. But, she still had to do the whole house vacuum on that day. Well, the play room was covered in train tracks and trains, which obviously were not hers. But, she picked up 3/4 of them before starting the vacuum, to which at that point, Brayden started picking them up in a hurry because he knows the rule...

IF YOU LEAVE TOYS OUT AND WE VACUUM, THEY GET VACUUMED UP!

By the way, I will continue with that rule until he figures out that they really won't fit in the vacuum cleaner and we are just using bribery....again. She's already figured it out. It was like a light bulb went off in her head. "Mom" she whispered in my ear..."those don't fit up the hose, you're just playing with him right?"

So, after she completes her chores that day, I asked Chris how much we should give her since she did extra work that week, and she was VERY well behaved and was very helpful to me. We decided on $3.

Before he gave it to her, he asked her if she'd like to earn a little more by helping Brayden clean his bedroom, which was also covered in train tracks and trains. She responds "Nah, I'm good with $3" and took the money and ran.......

• Brayden pushed Grayson down the other day, deliberately. I saw it happen, so I went over to him, sat him down, squeezed his cheeks and made him look me directly in the eyes.

Me:"Brayden, why did you push him down? He wasn't doing anything to you?"

Brayden: "Mom, he was heading right betowards me!"

It's nearly impossible to punish a child when you are laughing.....betowards??? I love it when little kids make up big words to sound smart.

• Chris picked up the kids from my moms house the other day and brought them home and we planned on going out to run errands and have dinner. Kaylee, who was overtired and exhausted and emotional, came in the house crying hysterically. She runs up to me and says "Mom....you and me HAVE to go upstairs". I look at Chris, who is walking in behind her and he gives me this eye roll as if to say "she's over reacting, or she's emotional over nothing" and I'm thinking to myself "what happened to my little girl that we have to go upstairs, just the 2 of us to take care of? Did she get her period already?"

I asked her what was wrong and through sobs and tears she pulls her hair back behind her ear and dramatically says "Mom, I can't go in public with only ONE earring in!"

Apparently, her earring had fallen out when she dozed off in Chris' truck and she was VERY upset about losing her earring......