Candid Camera

In our home, Travis tends to be more of the disciplinarian and I, well....not so much. Since school has been out, the kids have been testing the limits a bit and getting away with it since I have been busy with our little meatball, Eli. The other day, I captured an epic meltdown by Jordan on our camera without his knowledge....I showed Travis so that he could see what happens when he is away. When he played back the footage for Jordan and asked him to explain himself, Jordan was beside himself. "How did you get that?", he asked over and over. In answer, Travis geniously told him that we had installed hidden cameras all over the house so that we could see what they were doing at all times. Although it might not be completely moral or honest to deceive our kids in this way, I highly recommend it to anyone who has naughty children on occasion. At first, the kids had lots of questions like, "When did you have the cameras installed?", and "What do they look like?", "Are they in the car, too?" and my favorite, "Do you stay up all night watching everything that we did during the day?"
I was pretty proud of my own genius answer that they were all hidden in the smoke detectors (since they are in pretty much every room). It cracks me up to see them walking through the house with one eye on the ceiling and taking the time to contemplate some of their actions. In the last week their rooms have been a little cleaner, they have practiced the piano with less moaning and complaining, and they have been a little slower to do physical harm to one another. I don't know how long this will last but I just thought I would share in case anyone else is suffering from summer naughtiness, doesn't mind lying to their children, and needs a quick way to enforce the rules.