Mission accomplished. Now what?

This is an update to my post from October 8th about bribing the kids to stay in their rooms until the clock says a specified number.  You can read that here in case you missed it.


It totally worked.  I'm proud of the fact that I set up an incentive program that was successful and didn't fizzle out after a week or so and I'm super proud of Drew and William!  Check out their charts today:

  The original reward at the end were these awesome rain boots.  Well, when both kids hit their 15th sticker I figured I'd better get online and order the damn things.  I really didn't expect that this would work (or that they'd earn all 20 stickers) so I hadn't ordered the rain boots earlier.  The kind that Drew had chosen and the ones William had chosen were no longer in stock.  Chris was harping on me to just buy them something much more practical and by that I mean something totally not fun.  I had to explain that the whole point of this was for them to earn something of their choosing.  I searched a little deeper online and with the little nagging Chris-voice in my head, I did try and find something not completely useless, still fun, and in the same genre as the original reward.  I found these:

They are snow boots and honestly around here they are about as practical as rain boots.  We do get rain, but not a ton.  Not enough to have a need for rain boots.  And we plan on going to the snow much more this year (last year I was pregnant and too fearful to be walking where I may fall and have to have an army of men called in to help me up again).  Not only are these Spiderman and Princess snow boots, they light up when the kids walk.  I know.  I think to them it'd be the equivalent of a pair of Uggs for me that washed dishes and made lunches.  Comfy, soft, and just generally the best things ever. 

The boots arrived yesterday, the day Drew earned her 20th sticker.  William earned his this morning.  Today they wore their boots with pride.  And huge smiles.

So... now what?  Well, I'm thinking of each decorating their own jar and giving them a penny a day instead of sticker.  Then when each has earned 20 pennies, they can take it and buy themselves and ice cream or something like that.  They love to pay with their own money for things and I think this would be lots of little lessons all wrapped up in one.  Especially with this time change when everyone is waking about 6:15am I need an incentive that works for them to stay in their rooms and play quietly until 7:00am.  7:00am is the magic hour when I turn from a pumpkin into a princess so the time is not negotiable.  I'm open to other reward/incentive ideas. 

The clock says TWO FIVE THREE and I told them they could come down from quiet time at THREE ZERO ZERO today.  I have no sticker or no penny system set up yet so today they are going to get what I used to get when I did what I was supposed to as a kid.  A hug and a smile.  This should go over well...