The Pack Rat

This morning Annie was begging me to play with her and her dollhouse. I looked around and realized that pretty much every single toy she has was randomly scattered around the house. Since I really didn't want to pick them all up by myself, I think I came up with the biggest idea pretty much since the Tooth Fairy...let me tell you all about it. Apparently once you turn 3, but it could be 2...okay, once you turn 2, the Pack Rat starts coming to your house and he really likes toys. If he sees a toy that you haven't put away, he assumes, as any good pack rat would, that you don't really want that toy so he takes it home with him. I told this story to Annie and she looked around with fear in her eyes, and jumped up onto the couch and onto my lap. So I quickly added, well don't worry...he only comes at night when you are sleeping. Still some fear there, and I started to worry that maybe she would be too scared of the Pack Rat to go to bed, so I added that he was a nice Pack Rat..like Bailey. Okay she calmed down a bit, but just to add a little extra incentive, I told her that if he does come...and you never know when he will find the time to come...if he does come and see that all of your toys are put away, he might (added might because I've learned that you always need a little loophole in everything!) he just might leave you a little treat. Bingo! She jumped up and said "We gotta put our toys away, we don't want the Pack Rat to take them!" So a little over 5 minutes later every toy was in it's place...or at least someplace out of site which was fine with me! But it didn't stop there...now she is upstairs sweeping the kitchen floors...awesome! What's next....maybe the Dish Washer Genie who takes plates if they don't go into the dishwasher after dinner? I wonder if Tim would fall for that one...I wonder...