To the Garage....

So I decided to try out a friends parenting technique, sending the kids to the garage to "cool down" until they can come back in the house and be nice again. It works every time for her kids they spend about 5 minutes in the boring garage away from the situation and they are ready to apologize and rejoin the family.... apparently this is not the case with my stubborn children (it must be Shane's part of the gene pool!) So after battling a particulary naughty Gracee who in her defense was in a TV induced state of nastiness brought on by hours of brain altering cartoons because I was too tired to do much of anything after a night like last night...anyway straying off topic the point is I sent Gracee to the garage to "cool down" until she was ready to go to bed, super proud of myself for doing it calmly to. I turned off the light, shut the door and came inside to congratulate myself on my newly found parenting strategy. There was no screaming, kicking, crying just silence. After 5 minutes, she still hadn't knocked to come back in, so I decided to give it another 5 before I went out to ask if she was ready to rejoin the family in the house and this is what I found. Gracee had located a battery operated camp lantern, made a bed in the sled and covered herself with the remnants of saran wrap we had in the garage from moving, and was sound asleep with her stuffed dog. Honestly I'm not sure where this imaginative child comes from, but my garage days are over. On the plus side after sneaking back out to take a picture before I woke her and sent her packing back to her real bed there were no arguments from her and due to my guilty conscience she is curled up and fast asleep in my bed. Yes I know I win mom of the year award tonight!!!!