Microwave Timer and Coin Toss- logic and your toddler

Recently, we have discovered two new laws at our house. These natural laws are almost as constant as gravity or any of Newton's laws of motion. They are the phonomena of the microwave timer and the coin toss.

Sometime last season on "19 Kids and Counting," I saw Michelle Duggar set a 5-minute timer when two of her children were fighting over the same toy. It seemed to work like a charm. I thought, man...I wonder if that would work for Alec and Emma? Well, it didn't take very long before I was able to test it. I mean, not a day goes by that my children don't fight over some object, game or toy. So, I tried it out. I set the microwave timer for 2 minutes and said "listen for the beeps! When you hear the beeps, it will be Emma's/Alec's (whoever didn't have the toy first) turn."It worked like magic. Most of the time now, they will ask me to "set the beeps." Awesome.

Then, on another occasion they were arguing over what DVD they wanted to watch. I didn't want to choose (usually I know in my head if it's A's or E's turn to choose, but on this particular day I didn't) and be the bad guy, so I decided to try a coin toss. I explained that if it landed on "heads," Alec would get to watch what he wanted to watch, and if it landed on tails, Emma would. And again, magically, they just accepted that the coin was the boss.

I'm not exactly sure why my children are seemingly programmed to just accept the outcomes of each coin toss or the authority of the beeps, but I like it!