The smarshmallow cup

Vickey’s friend Jana suggested a couple months ago that we institute a reward system to praise Eliana for good things instead of giving her punitive attention for bad things.

At least since early last month we have given Eliana a marshmallow — she calls them ‘smarshmallows’ — for her good deeds.

Typically she’ll do something good, like actually go to the bathroom without prodding from her parents, then afterwards say, “That deserves a smarshmallow!” Sometimes we agree, and she gets one.

You can see by the photo that her cup doesn’t exactly runneth over.

She received one reward just before our cruise for filling her cup — a recorder. That was her favorite toy for 10 or 15 minutes. Speaking of toys, it seems to me that if we packed up half of her hundreds of toys and then brought them out again next year she’d be thrilled to death to have all the ‘new’ toys to play with. I think I’ll like it when the toys are traded in for more mature items.

The marshmallow cup is a good reward system. It’s just difficult to pull 5 marshmallows out every morning because Ellie wakes us up each night. Then she has to work all day to earn the marshmallows back. Thus, her cup since the first time it was filled has remained relatively steady at about 1/3 full.

Maybe one of these years she’ll opt for 8 hours of sleep like I so enjoy. Something to look forward to for all of us, I suppose.