I’m so behind. But since this blog is all about documenting this life’s adventures for our children (and everyone knows how to use a calendar), I don’t think it will be a problem to publish a post in May about an event in March, right?

Let’s find out.

Back in March (9-12) I had the great fortune to attend Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy in San Diego thanks to my friend Monica B. If you don’t know who he is, he’s famous for coaching Oprah (and Usher and lots of professional athletes), and honestly, he’s an incredible professional speaker. I learned a ton – oh, and I meditated for 20 minutes, unguided, with 2,000 of my closest friends. But I digress…

When the cat’s away, the mice will play! Since we have friends in San Diego, we decided I’d take the train, then Bart would drive the girls there and pick me up on Sunday. Guess what’s between LA and San Diego? Disneyland.

So he decided to spend the night there with the girls that Friday (oh, and I think my husband secretly loves Disneyland). Which leads to the parenting discussion.

We already have the problem that our children take things like plenty of food, clothes, toys and having a home for granted – and think “buying something” at Target is what all kids get to do for suffering through the shopping for toilet paper part. Plus, they think everyone who goes to Disney MUST go to Ariel’s Grotto (the most expensive kids’ breakfast on the planet). And what kid doesn’t get to go to Disney?

Spoiled.

Every good parent knows that unless you make “special” things “special”, kids think they are the norm. So my husband decided to tell them a week in advance that they must earn 300 “tickets” (for good behavior) to get to go to Disneyland. That’s something.

Here’s the system he devised to track that. He taped ROWS of pink star raffle tickets to the wall of our living room with painter’s tape, alongside a photo of the very fun trip to Disneyland they could have (or not):

As you can see, they took that task seriously – ha! And off they went to Disneyland with Daddy for an electric parade, junk food and of course, princesses:

Poor Ella didn’t get ONE smiling shot out of the bunch (not too shocking), and as is the case for most of Zoe’s few tooth losses, she lost another tooth in my absence. Thankfully, the Tooth Fairy travels, and this time she got $2.20 (unlike the 4 quarters she got last time). Everybody wins.

When they arrived to pick me up, they were accompanied by a huge Mickey bubble wand, cotton candy, various treats, 2 new odd purple straw hats, a stuffed version of Sven (the reindeer from Frozen), and the minivan looked like they had been living in it for a few days (which I guess is sort of true).

A good time was had by all, and Bart got an insane amount of DADDY POINTS (not that he needs them) and HUBBY POINTS, too. I swear that man’s a saint.