This morning I had a 'deja vu' moment when Kicky said 'You previously agreed on 10 and now you're saying I should do 30'. I felt the urge to open my laptop, rummage through my email of previously sent mails and give her the evidence of what was actually agreed.
Seems like when there are two parties to a contract, there is one who is always trying to renegotiate scope, cost and timeline. Yes now you know what I do for a living, project management.
There were mainly three points or let me say, the scope of the agreement was for Kicky to
1. Sleep in her own bed for 30 days, and not jump into ours in the middle of the night
2. Get dressed on her own every morning for 30 days
3. Wipe herself after her morning business for 30 days without seeking our help
At the end of 30 days she would be entitled to a gift.
This discussion has been taking place for over a month now and had not been fully implemented for lack of a tracker or let's say a plan.
Last night we created three trackers, one each for Sleeping, Dressing and Wiping. Negotiations started almost immediately. The main driver for creating the tracker was that some activities had already started without being tracked and so as to not lose sight of progress she actually pushed me to create this.
Her first status update was that she had slept on her own, for one night, when we went up to a cabin in the mountains last week. Of course that was an achievement, and I told her that I was very proud, tried to bring out my best 'proud of you' smile and also added a well done and big hug. That ought to make me the favoured parent for a few hours. So 'Day 1' of the tracker for Sleeping was marked with a sticker.
Now on the Dressing and Wiping, she has been doing this on and off on her own, but not progressively. But she approached it with a bang and gave it her best opening, "I have been doing this some times. So can we say 9?" Not 10 mind you because that's a whole round number which gives you the impression of too much. Has she already grabbed the concept of charm pricing.
We finally shook hands on '5' and were both happy. Though I'm quite sure I was played. Stickers were stuck on the chart marking the days and then it was time for bed.
There was some resistance in getting to bed as there always is and that's when I was quick to threaten with a penalty clause, where in I would take away a stuck sticker if there were tantrums, show downs or ignoring instructions. She said its unfair to do that because the activities were unrelated. I get the point,it's probably unfair, but the threat worked.
And then this morning, after having put her stickers for completing the 3 tasks, and subsequently doing the math of how much more she had to go to get a gift, she tried the 'if-my-memory-doesn't-fail-me' trick. It's the oldest trick in all of the books. She said, "You previously agreed on 10 and now you're saying I should do 30."
To which I replied, "No I never said 10. We never decided on the number of days." Of course being larger and louder my decision prevailed. But what hit me was my conversations at work and home were now almost similar.
The terms and conditions of the gift haven't been decided yet. That will surely hit me on Day 30 when claims are filed. I think I need to lawyer up.
