So I’m teaching last night, and Kelly’s at a whiffle ball game, and in the middle of class I get a call. Normally I wouldn’t interrupt something as gripping as a lecture on the passive voice to answer my phone, but the caller ID told me it was the babysitter. So of course I’m going to answer.

Turns out it wasn’t the babysitter, but Owen. Yes, my 4 year old has figured out how to use the phone. Anyways, within 30 seconds the conversation went from “Hi Mommy! I called you!” to uncontrollable sobbing. “Mommy I’m having a very bad day because I miss you and you need to come home right now!” Oh wow. First time I’ve gotten one of those calls- not even when Owen had his first sleepover, or when Kelly and I took our first weekend away without the boy.

I tried all I could to calm poor Owen down, but it was clear that the only thing that was going to make him happy was if I came home. All the while my students are witnessing me negotiating with a distraught preschooler. So I did the only thing a mommy could do. I told him I loved him, I missed him, and if he calmed down and went to bed (at this point its about 8:00 pm) I’d take him to Target in the morning. Within seconds the tears had stopped and in a bright and chipper voice Owen declared “Mommy, my day is good now. I love you. Goodnight.”

So yes, I parent by bribery. Don’t pretend you don’t either.