A new day dawns

We hit a landmark at home today. Our 8-year-old girl has discovered the telephone!

She forgot to write down her math assignment for tonight, so we told her she should phone a friend in the class to get the page number in her math workbook. After throwing a fuss about doing that, she finally picked up the phone. Within a few minutes she and two other kids had managed to get together a conference call (which also included one kid's pet parrot.) They all spent about half an hour giggling together on the speaker.

So, now she has a new rule to live by: she can call her friends when she wants, but she can only do so after all of her homework is completed.

I figure she's lost to us now, but there is a good side: We have always had a tough time regulating her behavior because there is little she wants so much that she would regret our taking it away. She doesn't care if she watches TV or not, she doesn't care much about her toys either. She doesn't really care much if she gets sent to her room. But, if she gets to loving the telephone, we will finally have some leverage. Bwahahaha!