What would you do if your 10 year old opened up any and all gifts (hers, yours, brother, errrbody) three days before Christmas?
Thoughts?? Then I'll reveal what we're doing.
This child...**sigh**
--------------------------------------------------------
Long version:
I came home from Zumba on Tuesday night and was getting Link's gifts for daycare ready for the morning, when I see what looked like a skirt peeking out of my mother's gift bag for Maddy.
My mother is meticulous about everything she does, so I knew she didn't just throw gifts in a bag and that they were individually wrapped in tissue paper.
On closer inspection, it appeared that all of the gift bags had been altered in some fashion, even ones that weren't for her.
I decided not to wake her up out of her sleep because I'm still salty about that damn detention, and woke her behind up nice and early before work on Wednesday. Of course, when I asked the initial question: "Maddy why on God's green earth did you think it was ok to open up gifts 3 days before Christmas?!", all I got was the deer in head lights *blink blink*. No denial, no admittance, just that fricken blank stare.
So here's what we did (I did actually, hubby says he's staying out of this one, but he cosigned)
1. The standard punishment = no TV and no computer time till Christmas
2. Can't open anything until New Year's since she saw most of them anyway
3. Apologize for ruining Christmas (long speech given about taking away a parents joy on Christmas morning - you know, I laid the guilt on thick)
Now that I've had some time to reflect, I really don't want to have a further ruined Christmas and came up with this:
1. I had my mom call Maddy and tell her that "Maybe if you're really good over the next two days, no sulking, no attitude, and write Mom an apology...maybe just maybe mommy'll reconsider letting you open gifts on Christmas".
2. I asked her to come clean and write down on a piece of paper what she opened and what she saw.
Off I went to Zumba tonight and I came home to an apology card and a slip of paper with the answer. Here's the dilemma: She only wrote down that she opened Nana's gift and looked at the dress, and was going to look at the others but the tissue paper was too much - Am I a sucker because I believe her?
Final answer to the punishment problem:
I will let her open what gifts are under the tree, but... our super gift to her that's been hiding in the garage will get wheeled in to the living room still intact in its box. We will show it to her, and then wheel it back into the garage - her TELESCOPE!!
This way if she's telling the truth, she still learns her lesson for touching the gifts, and if there was more, then she still learns a lesson and has to earn back the telescope - praying she'll get her act together by New Years!!!
Lesson for mommy: Wait until Christmas Eve to put kiddie presents under tree!!
