From the mouth of babes.....

So I have been struggling lately with Emma and her picking up her toys. She will be 5 next month and is absolutely capable of doing this she's just a bit lazy. So yesterday I got fed up with it and I decided to try something I saw on supernanny. I gave her all day to clean up her room. I instructed her on what to do, and told her that anything left on the floor at dinner time would be taken away in a trash bag and she would have to earn it back. I gave her several warnings about our upcoming dinner etc and tried to persuade her to clean up. Finally it was dinner time and so I went up there to check on things. Of course nothing got done. So it killed me but I began picking up each toy and placing it in the bag. Emma began to tear up and ask if I was going to throw them away and I told her no that I was going to hold them until she could prove she could clean up and then I would slowly give them back to her. She immediately perked up and said "oh here's a toy" "You missed one over here." I thought this quite odd, but kept collecting. When I finished, she looked around the room and said "Well at least my room's clean now!" haha! It backfired! Thanks Supernanny!!!