What a difference a day makes

Today, by 8:30 I was clothed and somewhat groomed, Cook and Dutch had been gone for half an hour, the breakfast dishes were washed, the ballet bag (the BIG SHOW is tonight and tomorrow morning, and I'm totally dreading it) was packed, and the laundry put away. There are two differences between yesterday morning and this morning - first, Skipper and I woke up an hour earlier, and second, Dutch now has a Chart.

Last night Cook put it together* for her, with her 6 key morning tasks. If she does all of them properly and promptly, she gets a sticker for the day. Once she's got 10 stickers, she gets to choose a movie to rent from Blockbuster. This is a big deal because we always rent our movies from the library, which means we have to wait (sometimes a very long time) for them. Instant gratification is a big deal for preschoolers.**

This morning we explained it to her, and she had tasks 1 and 2 done before Cook and I even crawled out of bed. She was standing by the door wearing her shoes (all tasks done) before Cook finished his coffee. The novelty and motivation will no doubt wear off soon, but it was a great morning.

Fun note for my vast reading audience of Swedes - our Picasa is still operating entirely in Swedish, and I just spent about 15 minutes trying to copy photos from my camera onto the harddrive - I kept clicking "avbryt," because my other option was "slutfor" which sounded like "stop" to me. Then I googled it, and when you google "slutfor," you get awful results. But I figured it out.

* He did it on the computer, using Illustrator, because he's like that - I would have done it on cardboard with crayons.

**And adults. Well, for me at least.