Cave, cave, cave!

So today I was trying to motivate my kids to clean our house (which was more of a pit than usual) and got the idea to have a race. Whoever did the most cleaning got to pick where we would eat lunch at when we were done. My oldest (the 8 year old) won as I expected she would. But instead of McD or Burger King or something, she kicked the MALL!! Now I didn't expect that and frankly didn't want to spend the money to drive that far (it's only 15 minutes away, but gas is expensive these days ). But my husband who was home for lunch said I needed to do what I promised instead of something else. So off we went, with me already upset about this turn of events. At the mall, the David and Rachel went with me to get pizza while Rose was busy chasing Matthew. I thought they were close by and was upset to discover that I didn't see them when I turned around. I completely panicked!!! Well Rose was following her brother but making no effort to bring him back. Finally she promised him a ride on the merry go round if he came back. So they returned. So we ate then ended up riding the merry-go-round. After that, off to the play area. Walking there, the kids had to stop in all the stores and look around. So I'm running through the mall, into and out of stores, chasing my children. I know people were staring so I was trying not to scream at them. We played for awhile in the play area, which is "conveniently" located next to a train kids can ride ($2.50 a kid) and outside the toy store. In spite of promises from 3 kids not to ask for anything, all 4 ended up in the toy store begging for things.

Which is where the title of this bog comes in (bet you were wondering-if anyone is even still reading this really long narrative). I CAVED IN!! We spent $60 on toys, plus $20 on lunch, plus probably $5 in gas. All this to reward cleaning the house. Although to be fair, they did a remarkably good job. But I'm disappointed in myself because not only did I pig out on pizza at lunch, but I wasn't real effective at disciplining them and totally caved in and bought them stuff when I shouldn't have rewarded behavior that wasn't real great at the mall. Cave, cave, cave!!