5 minutes and 4 seconds

Do you ever ask your children to do something and get met with resistance? Do they try to make deals? Get you to do whatever it is you are asking them to do? This often happens to me, the other night in a moment of pure desperation to end it all I made a new rule. It flew out of my mouth the instant the thought popped in my head. After I said it, I thought about it, and decided I was a genius! It was the end all to our nightly bickering. I had found a way to win, forever. No more deals, no more whining. None. Its over. I win. I had asserted my authority and I was very proud of myself. From now on Julian will pick up all his toys evrynight without being told because the wii was tied to it. If he goes to bed without picking his toys up, fine. I will pick them up, but the next day there would be no wii. No questions, no deals, no reminders. Do your chore or pay the next day.
Some of you are thinking good for you. I was thinking that to. At this point I was still marvelling at my moment of pure genius, I was impressed with myself. Bruno seemed impressed too. Then Julian decides he doesn't care if he gets the wii tomorrow, that is when I realized it wasn't as thought out as it should have been. I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I had been. He was going to go to bed feeling off the hook and I would clean up the toys, and tomorrow I will pay. He will scream and cry, try to make deals and make life miserable. Yes, I am the mom and I will have to deal with it. But oh how miserable it will be.
As he climbed in his bed he announces he wants to watch his channel on TV. It came to me then, he needs immediate consequences. I say "If you clean your toys up in the next 5 minutes you can have your channel. Otherwise no TV tonight and no Wii tomorrow." He climbed back down from his bed grumbling and whining. "But mom, 5 minutes isn't long. How can I do all that in 5 minutes?" I don't respond. I'm not playing into this. I'm smarter than that. So he gets to the door, turns around and says "Mom, can I have 5 mintues and 4 seconds?" "Yes son, yes you can. GO!" And he was off, hurrying to clean and yelling "Hurry Carlos, help me, we only have 5 minutes and 4 seconds". Toys were cleaned up in 3 minutes.