Having a positive attitude about school has been a struggle at our house.  Combine that with basically two months of ongoing colds and getting to school has been nearly impossible.  By Monday, I was at my breaking point – I was so tired of the whining and crying about going to school that I threw down a wager:

If Stella could make it through one week of school with a positive attitude, we would go to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday

And that is all it took.  For the rest of the week she was mildly happy about going to school and leaving the house in the morning wasn’t as much of a struggle.  She even showed me her basic math skills, letting me know on Tuesday night that she had already been to two days of school, leaving 3 more days.

As promised, we headed to Chuck E. Cheese Saturday for games and lunch, and the afternoon was way more fun than I had anticipated.

You see, I am horrible at all of these games, so the last time Stella and I were at an arcade, we walked away with some cheap, small plastic toy as our prize.  Lucky for us, Michael was in town and able to come with us on our adventure.

His only intention for the afternoon was to get as many tickets as possible so Stella could get a good prize.  And he succeeded.  While Stella and I wandered about the place, playing a game here or there and winning a few tickets at a time, Michael found the one game he could get to pay out.

Stella tried her had at hoops, quickly picking up how to toss the ball in the basket.

And she did incredibly well for someone who had never played basket ball before.

At the end of the day we ended up with over 1,800 tickets.

Apparently even after shelling out quite a bit of money on tokens you still get a cheap plastic toy, but it was all worth it.  Stella was still thrilled!

Michael and I also concluded that Chuck E. Cheese was kind of like a casino for kids.  The games were addicting, the food was mediocre at best and there wasn’t a clock anywhere to be seen.  We ended up staying longer and spending more money that planned, but I can’t complain too much – it was fun.

Now I have to think of another wager in an attempt to get through another week 🙂