Last Friday Sara started to throw a tantrum, and quickly stopped. Mid-whine. She grabbed her BF Doll, IshPooh, and threw her to the floor. Face down! Before I could protest the inhumane treatment of The Ish, Sara threw herself face down on the rug, and hit the play button on the tantrum. A-ha. She wanted some company on her tantrum train. Gotcha.

And the source of the fit? The Reward Chart of all things. The Toddler Paycheck, if you will. Sara earns stickers for lofty achievements such as taking a nap, using her listening skills, and going to bed without major drama. Every 15th sticker earns her a “surprise”. Once Sara caught onto the surprise portion of the chart, she made the logical and oh-so-Daddy-of-her conclusion, that all stickers should include a surprise portion. It’s faster. Getting a surprise with EACH sticker would mean accumulating MORE surprises. Duh, Mommy. The explanation of it-doesn’t-work-that-way didn’t go over so well.

So well-meaning Mommy added Counting Chains to the chart. Now we can count and rip off links to better visualize when a surprise is coming. Sara loved the making, taping, and ripping of the links. Until she realized that every link did not bring a surprise either. Repeat aforementioned tantrum. Oh well. At least I’ve added to the pointless complexity and mess of the project. So I’ve got that goin’ for me…

Wednesday Morning addendum:  last night while I was writing this post, Sara illustrated for us why we have the reward chart.  When going up to check on Sara’s progress towards sleep, I heard Greg say, “Oh SARA!  OH NO! NO!  I am not happy right now!  This is unacceptable!”.  Instead of drifting off to sleep, she had removed all of her clothes and was bouncing on her bed.  That does not constitute “reward sticker behavior”.  Naked Tigger at 9 pm is definitely Major Drama in the Going to Bed category.