Barns are more fun to clean than bathrooms

Who wouldn't rather clean a barn than a bathroom? I wanted Emily to have responsibility for her own bathroom. From the age of 4 she was wiping surfaces clean with a paper towel and a spray bottle of diluted white vinegar. I expected her to hang her towel over a free-standing towel rack each day and to drape the bathmat over the edge of the tub. Each year a dollar was added to her allowance and another family chore - now that she was bigger. When I referred to her bathroom as a barn and we turned the edge of the tub into a horse named Princess and the towel rack into a mule named April, she suddenly remembered to drape her "horse blankets" on the "horses" more often. And when she didn't, it didn't sound as mean when I said, "April and Princess are cold" than when I used to say, "You forgot to hang up your towel and bath mat again!"

Secret Language to Stop Bad Behavior

Emily and I have a lot of code words or tunes we've used over the years as ways to get our points across without hurting each others' feelings. Many of them were only appropriate for a toddler or young child, but some we still do to this day.

• Somehow it seems less rude to be hurried by the Bug's Bunny chase song than to be told, "Hurry up!"
• When one of us is doing something annoying, we ask, "When's Memorial Day?" This is our code for "Stop it!" 
• After reading the book, The Little Dog Who Would Not Wag His Tail, "Wag your tail!" whispered behind Emily's neck was my reminder to her to be more friendly. 
• I'd whistle or hum a bit of Rosemary Clooney's song, Straighten up and Fly Right, as I tidied the house around Emily and her friends. This was my code to Emily that she was being being bossy or mean. Her friends didn't notice what I was doing at all, but Emily would say, "Thanks Mom - I got it." It gave her that immediate feedback little kids need to correct bad behavior, without embarrassing her in front of her friends. 
• Zabbazee is the phrase our family yells when someone says something from some far-off place and imagines that you heard them. "Zabbazee" yelled back let's them know in a nice way, "Get over here and talk to me face to face."
• My dad had a singsongy 2 note whistle that my sister and I knew as a warning call. If we didn't stop the shenanigans, there'd be trouble.

1-2-3 I-Love You

If your kids are little, I'd recommend you start a 3-squeeze secret code with them making sure they know it means "I-love-you." My dad used to squeeze our hands 3 times saying one word of the phrase with each squeeze. It was great when we were little, but when it came in really handy was once we were teenagers. At that age, you don't always want to hear your parents say, "I love you." But when my dad would knock on my knee 3 times while we were sitting at a football game or when he'd reach over at the kitchen table and jab me 3 times with his fork, it seemed like just the perfect thing to do. When my husband and I started dating, I taught him the 1-2-3 squeeze. The most wonderful time he 1-2-3ed me was when we had sold our first home and were buying the next all in the same day and our buyer fell through killing both deals. As I followed my husband home in my car after our disappointing evening at the bank, my husband's brake lights lit up in front of me on the highway as he touched them 1-2-3 times. Sometimes an "I-love-you" touch is still just the perfect thing.