For Steph

Hi friend!

Okay, the Great Halloween Trade-off!

First of all, let me just say that I truly believe that kids will do what you expect them to. For example, if a parent just expects that their child's room is always going to be a mess, that the child will never stay in their own bed much less MAKE it every morning, that the child will never eat broccoli or enjoy fruit and will not like to read, then that is what the child will do.

One expectation I'm working on changing with Carly is that when she falls down, I expect her to cry and make a big scene and stagger around for two hours like someone tried to chew her leg off....so...that is EXACTLY what she does. For the more positive expectations, we manage it with the words we use. Like just the other day, she goes, "Mommy! I'm EATING!" and then she asked me why I didn't get excited and clap for her. I said, "Silly girl, it's dinnertime! Of course you're eating!"

Anyway, you probably knew this. I think most people do it that way.

But anyway, that all leads into the Halloween trade-off thing, and I'm pretty sure it helped things go smoothly. I started telling her a couple of weeks ago that there was going to be a Candy Store after trick-or-treating and she could 'buy' some cool toys with her candy. Then I went out and bought the stuff and just hid it away. I read about this idea somewhere...I forget where...and that lady bought dollar-store toys. Those would totally work, and she might have actually gotten MORE excited, but I don't like buying throwaway stuff because to me it seems wasteful.

Anyway, when we got home and turned on the Monsters VS Aliens Halloween special, I brought out all the toys and let her go shopping! The Barbie cost 25 pieces and the other stuff was between 10 and 15. It luckily worked out that she was able to 'afford' everything with only one piece of candy left over which she got to eat right then while she played with her Barbie.

So that's how it worked! I'm probably going to have to tweak my pricing next year or maybe offer one BIG prize for all the candy. I don't know...I don't want the choices to be too hard, because it really is supposed to be ALL fun. And really...a new Barbie, three new pets, nail polish and two cars seems like they are going to be WAY more fun than three minutes of candy! =)