A Little Extra Incentive

November 21, 2012

Jeff and I have a little white board that has been on the fridge in all three of our homes since the day we moved into our first apartment together after we got married. The first week we were married, Jeff wrote this note on it for me to find one morning ...

For whatever reason, the note never got erased ... until Luke decided he wanted to color on the board a couple of weeks ago. Well, 4 years and 2 months is a pretty long time for a note to stay on a white board that is used almost daily! But even more impressive is that, miraculously, the marker that was used to write the note only ran out of ink a few months ago! How does a dry erase marker last almost 4 years when it's used to write every grocery we ever need in that time?!? Amazing!

Anywho, on to the point of this post ...

I wanted Luke to come with me on a bike ride one morning, but since we had been on a bike ride that had gone just a little too long for his liking the day before, I knew he would need a little extra incentive to convince him to subject himself to that again. The idea came to me almost instantly: strap the white board onto the bike seat!

Worked like a charm!

And he only dropped his marker 3 times on the way to Caitlin's house.

A quick story from our ride to Caitlins ...

Background: If Luke is saying sorry (to me or jeff or one of his cousins, etc.), it is almost always accompanied by a hug. "Luke, you made Becca cry, can you say sorry and give her a hug to make her feel better?"

During our bike ride, we ended up stuck behind a couple of gardeners, who were leaf blowing the side walk and gutter in front of us, for a few seconds. Then, they noticed us and said, "Oh sorry, sorry!" and let us pass. After we passed them, Luke asked me, "Why they say sorry?" I told him they were in our way, but they were very nice to say sorry and let us by. Luke responds, "Yeah, but he didn't want to hug me."