Joaquin is the Boss Day

See this thing?

This is a powerful motivator.  The kids have one pinned up next to their desk, and as they demonstrate mastery of concepts, good work ethic, perseverance, good behavior, or some other desirable behavior, they earn stickers to put on the badge.


Eight stickers=full badge
Full badge= one of the following:
                  1. you get to skip one subject in school that day (unless there's a test in said subject)
                  2. you get 15 extra minutes of recess
                  3. you get 15 extra minutes of reading in bed that night
or, the super duper option number 4.  you save your badge until you have FOUR full badges, and you turn them in for "I'm the Boss Day".


"I'm the Boss Day" is a concept I read about in some awful parenting magazine years ago, in an article about a boy who didn't want to get his allergy shots.  Or go to piano practice.  Or help his sibling learn to ride a bike. Or do his chores.  The author, who was the child's mother, came up with "Boss Day" to help her child feel like he still had some autonomy in his life.  
Please.  The kid in question was six.  How much autonomy does any six year old have?  Help your dang brother ride a bike, after you've done the dishes and practiced the piano, and hurry up because we have to go to the doctor for your shots, and no, I don't care that you don't want to do it.  
Whew.  I feel better now.
I'd pretty much written the article off as D-U-M-B dumb, but couldn't get a line of it out of my head.  The author said that during the course of the day, since the six year old was the boss, and mom and dad had to say "yes" to every demand of the boss, she found herself playing more than usual.  She found herself lounging and laughing and enjoying her child more than usual.


During one particularly difficult stretch of Lotus behavior back in Memphis, I thought I'd give it a try.  I was totally out of ideas, and frankly, if the word "no" came out of my mouth one more time, I was going to staple my own lips shut.
We told her that we were giving her a day to be boss, and that should could totally control the day.
The only restrictions were:
1. only one meal out
2. any spending she wanted to do, she had to earn the money for.
It ended up being a great day, I had two weeks worth of little chores done for my by an industrious five year old, and morale, if not behavior, improved for a while after.


So we decided to add "Boss Day" to the list of things one could earn with a behavior badge.


Joaquin decided he wanted one, but the problem was, every time he had a full badge in his hands, impulse won out over discipline, and he'd end up cashing it in for more recess.  Finally, I told him that I was closing all badge options to him with the sole exception of Boss Day.  


Thirty-two stickers later, Joaquin had earned his Boss Day.  And two weeks after that, we found a Saturday to make it happen.


Joaquin sleeps in later than anyone else in the house.  When we're all up and going by 6:30, lazy butt will be in bed until 7:45.  But not yesterday, oh no.  He was up and demanding that I play video games with him by 6:30.

Playing video games with Joaquin is not fun.  My normally gentle, patient boy becomes short tempered and irritable.  He demands that I drop out, or just kill myself, or hand over the controller entirely.
So I just took pictures.


Lotus wanted to make Joaquin a cake, so while the boss was playing "Little Big Planet", Lotus, Gabriel, Jude and I made an Italian cream cake.  And yes, it was every bit as delicious as it sounds.

I realized that the boss hadn't come upstairs to help make the cake, which is odd.  And no one had been issued demands, which is also odd.  So I went to go check on the boss.


I found him playing video games.

Knowing that Joaquin had planned for us to go play -ahem- more video games at Chuck E. Cheese, then have lunch at Red Robin, I went to take a shower.  When I got out, hair dried, makeup on, and ready to go, I found this:

I'm at a loss for words here.  Other than our Friday mortification of no video games or TV shows must be a great sacrifice indeed for Joaquin.  Whew.
Finally, I intervened, and got everyone away from the video games.  Joaquin is a little punchy from spending so much time in front of a TV set.

Chuck E. Cheese, which is a gross and horrifying place, is in Manchester, right down the road from the gross and horrifying Extend-A-Stay America that we called "home" for the first 10 days in Connecticut.  
So every time I go to Manchester, all those feelings of homesickness, pregnancy hormones, depression, and low-level rage sort of resurface, and I start to hyperventilate. 
Add that to the looming horror of Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday, and you can imagine the level of agitation I had already reached.

Look at it.  Yeah, I see you, mouse.  Go ahead and give me the thumbs-up sign.  I've got a finger for you, too.  Just not my thumb.


As an aside, I think it is one of the greatest stunts of the universe that arranged things so that the store right next to Chuck E. "I bring out the worst in children AND parents!" Cheese is this store:

Hahahahahaha.


So into the beast we went.  Where it was loud, so crowded the only way we could get a table was by ordering food (which we didn't want, so we couldn't have a table), and basically a writhing mass of hands and tokens and slobbering.


But the kids had fun.

And these were all the pictures I could take, because I had to watch coats, put two pairs of shoes back on boys, keep track of four kids (Ken pulled short straw and got Jude duty).  Oh, and stimulated out of his flipping mind, one of my children peed himself.  I will spare his dignity by not naming names.  But it meant that I had to take him back to the van.  Which meant I had to take him and the baby, since the baby was in a sling on my back.  And since I didn't want Joaquin to miss out on his rightfully earned Boss time due to his brother's bladder, and I knew Ken couldn't handle Lotus, Joaquin and Jude, I took Jude with me, too.


Which did not make the Jude happy.  Oh no.  In fact, it meant that I got to walk to the van with a baby strapped to my back, a toddler with pee drenched pants crying hysterically, and a Jude who was having the mother of all temper tantrums tucked under my arm.
Two women standing outside of David's Bridal saw me, and quickly made phone calls to their pharmacists.


Back in the van, dry pants on, I told Gabriel that we'd just wait right here until Lotus and Joaquin were done.  He's a goofy kid, and frankly, I was happy he gave me an excuse to get out of that place.

But Jude kept screaming "CAR!  CAR!  CAR!"  at the top of his lungs.   The poor kid was so happy to have Ken put token and token into the car ride, and now he was stuck in- wait a second!- a car!  So I let him drive us someplace.

He's an excellent driver.  And, thankfully, a quiet one.


Eventually, the big kids came out with their prizes.  Lotus got vampire teeth:

Joaquin got a "sword through your finger" magic trick:

And I got to go have a giant beer at a restaurant.  Good times!  Then we came home, and Joaquin played more video games.  I suspect that child would have been completely content in a room by himself and the PlayStation all day.  As long as there was a woman to bring him food from time to time, he would have thought it the best day ever.


But enough of me yapping- here's Joaquin's own take on it:

Funny he didn't mention all the video games, though.