One day, I had brought up the clean clothes from the laundry room and sorted them out. One pile for my clothes, one pile for Aaron's, another for the boys', and one for Rachel. I took the boys' pile to their room. It is their job to put them away in the closet. On a whim, I opened their sock drawer to throw some clean socks in...
There were no socks!!! I mean none, nada, zip, zilch, zero, it was empty. I do the laundry just about every other day; there should be some there. This is not the first time that this has happened. I was so upset! The boys don't like to wear socks so they take them off and throw them or leave them everywhere. I bought lots of socks just before school started and they are not cheap. I have to put an end to this!
I called the boys and sent them out to hunt for their missing socks. They were everywhere, underneath the couch, behind doors, around the toilet, in the lego bin, in the car, and so on. They found several and we put them together, but there was still 10 socks missing.
As a mom, I always try to find the most effective way to teach and discipline them, whether it works or not. This time, I said, "I am going to take out $3 each from your allowance and replace the socks you've lost!" I was being generous, $6 is not enough to replace 10 pairs of socks. I figured $3 was a lot of money for them too. Since they could see how upset I was they did not argue but said, "OK".
A couple of days later, I took the $6 and bought socks. It was $1.25 each so I had 5 pairs of socks. When the kids came home, I showed them the price tag and explained what I had done. When they saw the socks and price, I could see their shoulders and heads slump and they let out a small sigh like they were thinking, "Oh, this crazy lady really did it."
I guess the discipline worked, they don't leave the socks all over the place anymore. I am many things, a wife, a mother, a quilter, a friend, and now my loving supportive husband gave me the title "Sock Nazi".
You know what I like about you...you don't sit and sulk...you just figure out a solution...and move on! You are a great example to me...thank you!
ReplyDeleteToo funny! My Mason has sock issues. At this very moment his church socks are sitting in the middle of the living room. That's the first thing he takes off when he walks in the door from school (its usually accompanied by a pile of wood chips from the playground too)! Just put them in the laundry basket already! Good solution. I just told my kids that if they don't start picking up their toys every night, then the next day I'm going to take everything of theirs and dump it. Clothes off hangers, clothes out of drawers, toys out of every bin and bucket then they'll have to pick it all up. I call it overcorrection I just hope I don't have to really do it. The idea of it seemed to sink in. Love you!
ReplyDeleteRemind me to never stuff my socks in your couch when I come over... not sure I could pay the debt! I love you dearly and love your delightful sense of humor and outlook on life!
ReplyDeleteEven though I've already heard this story, it still cracks me up!! I'll have to keep that in mind when things disappear in my house
ReplyDeleteWay to be, Sock Nazi! They will learn!
ReplyDeleteMy girls are charged $1 for every minute that they fight! I think it is sinking in!
Also, with their toys, I let them chose if they want to clean up or if they want me to clean up. Now they always want to clean up, instead of me taking everything!
Now there isn't much complaining when it's clean up time!
I think we can all learn a lesson from this story. I'm going to go look in Ethan's drawer right now!!!!
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