A Strange and Wonderful Thing Happened at My House Today And I Wasn't Even There.

Early Wednesday morning I was looking at the Flylady site before I headed out to get everything ready for the business meeting. While at her site I read a recommendation for something called the House Fairy. It would magically get your children to clean their room without any arguments or struggles. All it took was to subscribe to her program in which the House Fairy would write your children weekly letters, send them videos on the computer, and promise them rewards.

My first thought was "yeah right, that will never work." To prove my point I proceeded to write a letter to my youngest, messiest son from a Fairy of my own. In it I explained that his mother had written in desperation needing help to get him to pitch in and clean his messy room. I too promised weekly letters and rewards, (no videos of the fairy talking to Santa though, I do good just to be able to use the word processor.) As a kicker I added an elephant joke to the bottom of the letter and printed out an elephant book mark as a reward if he cleaned around his toy box. He was told that there was a surprise waiting in that area if he cleaned it enough to find is. I then had one of his older brothers "find" the letter after I was gone and read it to him.

Guess what? He loved it! He called me at church to tell me all about the letter. He then went on to talk about how he had cleaned around his toy box and found an elephant book mark there. He told me that he was going to use it in his reader so he could find the right page. He then went on to contemplate were the letter had come from.

Now you have to understand that he is not a stupid child. He knows good and well that there are no real fairies, elfs, or Santas. So now he is all excited because he's going to get letters but he can't figure out from who. Could it be Skyler? Could it be Jeffery? Would someone else write him a letter? I really think he liked that part better than the surprises. Don't get me wrong, he's not above taking any gift he can get, but getting letters from someone is somehow special.

The other thing that he was really excited about was that one of the rewards for doing the work was that he gets to spend alone time having fun with his father or I. Imagine that, he's with us all the time, but the idea of alone time with us was one of the rewards he liked best. Funny how the smallest, cheapest rewards are the ones he prizes most.

So anyway I have painted myself into a corner. I can't stop because I promised that this would be a continuing thing if he did his part, and so far he is with great excitement. I can't purchase the other program because I have created a different personality in my first letter. How would I explain the change? Plus I know my son and can get personal, she does not and so she can't. Still she can provide cool videos when I can't but that doesn't out weigh the other problems. So now I'm about to become a split personality; on the one hand the mother on the other the anonymous friend.

Well I'm off to hide a well done sticker. This could get interesting.