The Ponytail Offer has been on the books for years. Ella was probably just 3 or 4 when I first suggested that her hair might look nice in a ponytail, and her emphatic response to the suggestion was “NO!” I don’t know why — maybe she thought it was too girly — and it wasn’t like it was a big deal for me either, but every once in a while I’d raise the idea again and she’d shoot it down.
Then the stubbornness set in. On both sides. I would raise the stakes — “I’ll give you a dollar if you put your hair in a ponytail!” — but the answer would always be “NO!” As the years went by the stakes just got higher. When she was 5 I offered to buy her an Xbox game if she’d wear her hair in a ponytail for one whole day. She hesitated over that one, but still refused in the end — with an admonition that I might as well give up because she would never, EVER wear her hair in a ponytail. When she was 6, and a little more money-aware, I converted the game offer to a straight-up cash bribe, but she still didn’t bite.
So all of this year, the standing offer has been $50 if she’d wear her hair in a ponytail all day on a school day, $30 on a non-school day. And there was nary a crack in her resolve … until this week.
Backing up a bit … we started allowances for the kids this year, and Ella has been dutifully saving up for the LEGO Millenium Falcon. This was, needless to say, a long-term project, but she was carefully saving and exhibiting restraint and generally doing all the things you want your kids to do when you start the whole allowance thing in the first place. She got her first lucky break when my mom found one on sale for $112, and picked it up to be held in reserve for her when she had raised the money. That saved her a good chunk of time. Then came December 1, and some birthday money from one source or another, and she found herself having amassed $80. And then we found ourselves in Michigan, where the actual Millenium Falcon itself was waiting for her. I told her that I’d happily give her $32 if she wore her ponytail for a day, throwing in the extra $2 out of my unfathomable generosity.
At long last, she gave in. And so, today, she is sitting across the table from me, with her brother and her cousins, constructing the Millenium Falcon out of LEGOs — a massive project — while wearing a ponytail that I think looks just awesome. And this is actually DAY THREE of ponytail wearing. I suspect she kind of likes it, actually. But I will never ever dare to say to her “Looks like you really enjoy wearing a ponytail, don’t you?” or (God forbid!) “I told you so!” lest the spell be broken.
