Fairies

Watching Super Nanny this evening Darr and I learned a valuable lesson we figure we'll employ in the future - the power of the fairies. Case in point, there was one little girl who was 2 years old and still quite comfortable walking around all day with a binky in her mouth. To wean the girl off of the binkies, Jo advised using the fairy method and, voilà! binky fairies were born. What are binky fairies and how do they work, you ask. Binky fairies come to collect binkies from older children to redistribute them to babies that need them. With a little enthusiasm, you get the child on board with the project of collecting said binkies and place them in a bag, including the binky in the kid's mouth. The bag is then hung from a tree outside with the promise of a surprise present from the binky fairies to follow the next morning. At some point the bag of binkies is removed from the tree and a gift from the binky fairies is put in its place. It worked great, the kid was happy, and the binkies disappeared.

We immediately saw the benefit of this method. Whenever we can't figure out a way to get the kid to listen to us, we enlist the aid of the fairies. It's a perfect plan! Sure, it'll cost a small fortune in fairy gifts but if it keeps the kid in line that is a small price to pay. I think the trick will be to continue to create positive fairies that reinforce and reward good behavior. We don't have kids yet but I'm sure the poo fairies will visit us when potty training begins. When the child poos in the toilet, the poo fairies appear and magically whisk away the crap, leaving the traditional fairy present behind.