Have You Ever Bribed Your Child?

Have you ever bribed your child? I mean seriously, what parent hasnt and dont' lie to me! OK I know it is not at the top of the list for "Better Parenting" and teachers would definately not approve. So if you are a teacher, just close your browser now because you are NOT going to like the rest of this post :)

I currently owe Hayden $300 dollars. You may ask yourself what in the world did he do to get that kind of cash? I personally am wondering if I've lost my marbles too and am thinking I might try to see if he'll take an IOU or a credit card to cover "charges incurred".

It all started with this little purple valve called a Passy-Muir valve which enables Hayden to talk with his trach. So you may remember that over these 3-1/2 months, Hayden has not been able to talk because he was nasally intibated. As a result I am now proficcient in reading lips, a skill that required a high amount of concentration when your child is talking 100 words a minute!!!

But now that Hayden has a trach, he can talk if we put on the Passy Muir valve. Hayden has decided that it makes it harder to breath with the valve on and is stubbornly refusing to ues it. Strangely the Docs did an evaluation on him while he had the Passy Miur valve on to look at O2 intake and it did make his O2 intake a tinsy, tin,y minutely, bit, slighly lower. So I said to Hayden, "Really? Dude you have got to wear this thing Mommy's eyes are really worn out from trying to read your lips." and what do you think he said...."Nope!"

So being the desperate mother that I was, I told Hayden that I would give him $1 for every minute that he wore the Passy-Muir valve. And do you know that kid wore the valve for 5 hours. No problem. Playing Wii, computer, doing physical therapy, the whole shabang. Yes 5 hours is 300 minutes.

When Hayden woke up the next day and wanted to put on the valve, I warned him that my deal with him was a one time only gig. He just smiled his cute impish smile and said I know....and then asked when I was going to pay him the $300. Ha! Kids!