An ineffective punishment and a grand compliment

Miriam is absolutely amazingly wonderful and I love her to pieces. One thing I love about her is her determination. Unfortunately, it causes at times some motherly frustration. Something that we struggle with is getting dressed. It's not that she minds wearing clothes, she just doesn't like putting them on. She has developed a habit of running laps (down the hall, through the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and back to the front room and the hallway again) any time I get clothes out. I didn't want to make it an issue, and figured she was old enough to be embarrassed, so one day last week I told her that if she wasn't dressed, she'd have to come running errands with me in her jammies. She may be old enough to be embarrassed, but she is not embarrassed by wearing jammies in public. She thought it was awesome. So much for that route. I now give her a piece of her Halloween candy for every item of clothing that she puts on. It works much better. It's only bribery if it's illegal, right? Anyway, after we got home from the jammies-in-public event, it was lunchtime. She chose to have a cold hot dog stick (as in not cut up) with ketchup to dip-dip in, cold canned green beans, and some cheese cubes. I almost gagged as I watched her dive in, but my little mama heart just melted when she enthusiastically and through a full mouth said, "This is the best dinner I ever had! I love the taste!" Ah, a little appreciation sure goes a long ways!