En Garde!

Well, he did it! He got his 10th star this morning, and has FINALLY received the coveted pirate sword. (I think the faux leather tassels distracted him from the fact that it doesn't look like the pirate sword from Peter Pan.)

Here's how it went down...I told him last night that I had the sword, ready to give to him, and all he had to do was to stay in his bed until the sun came up. He went to bed, and I thought I would try something different...risky to mess with a sleeping child, I know, but I thought that if I tried to wake him up to use the potty at 11pm, that might reset his sleep pattern and then he would sleep longer. Well, whatever it was...he slept until 5am!

When he came into our room, I reminded him that he was only about 2 hours away from getting the sword. He didn't seem to care--he just wanted to 'nuggle with Daddy...which is incredibly adorable, but I had to remain focused!! No cutie-patootie-ness was going to distract me from the finish line that we were sooooo close to crossing...I wanted him to get that last star more than he did.

So, I pulled out the big guns.

"Ben--do you want to see the sword?"

Well, that perked his interest right up. (I'll leave out the fact that I asked Brad to go out to my car to get the sword and his response was "Are you kidding me?" so I had to throw on my Uggs and head on out to retrieve it from my trunk...again, I'll leave that part out.) When I got back in from the freezing Florida pre-dawn air and showed it to Ben, exclaiming how cool this thing was, his first reaction was "Awh...it's not gold." Of course it's not. I should have known he wanted a gold one. So, I did what any other sleep-deprived, desperate parent would have done--I lied. "Of course it is, Sweetie--you just can't see it because it's dark. And look! It has tassels!"

It took a little more coaxing and promising that he could have the sword for his very own in a few hours and the piling of 6 more blankets on top of him, but he was finally tucked back into his own bed by 5:15, snug as a bug in a rug...and he stayed that way until 7:30!! Woo hoo! He got his last red star (which he complains about not really being red--I guess I grabbed a different red crayon and he thought I had given him a pink star...geez, Mommy...) and the sword is now his to "fight" with.

Great...it's all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out.