In the mornings, Bryce knows that he's supposed to stay in bed in his room until 7:00. The only exception is if he needs to go the bathroom. And even then, he's to go right back to bed. To help with this, I bought a clock for the boys' room at a garage sale a while ago. This led to a new obsession about times and scheduling. Homework is done at 3:30, bedtime is 8:00, etc. Don't even thing about getting anything done even two minutes before the scheduled time! And if one of the clocks in the house is different, we have to (well, at least he wants us to) wait until they all say 3:30, or 8:00, or whatever.
Mr. Smarty Pants has figured out how to use clocks to his advantage, though. A couple days ago, he came into my room at 6:38. I told him to go back to bed because it wasn't 7:00 yet. He proceeded to tell me that it was 7:00 on the Wii. I send him back to bed anyway, but later that day I checked the Wii clock. Sure enough, for some reason it was 23 minutes fast. Smugly, I thought, I'll get him now, and I changed the clock to the correct time. The next day, he came into my bedroom again at about 6:45. When I told him it wasn't 7:00 yet, he replied that it was after 7:00 on the Wii. I then informed him that it wasn't, because I fixed the clock and it's the same as the one in his room now. He went back to bed, but reappeared at 6:58. Once again, I said, "Bryce, it's NOT 7:00. Stay in your room until 7:00!!!" Without batting an eye, he said, "It's 7:00 in the blue van." Little stinker. He's right. I keep the van clock ahead by 2 minutes just to help keep us moving when we're out and about. Beaten by an 8 year old. I let him get up. But I fully intend on taking my phone around the house with me and resetting EVERY clock until they all say the same thing!!!
