Not-creative-enough Correction

Just a little story to share...

While I was distracted on the phone, my smallest Dandelion helped herself to the Cheerios box.  She then proceeded to dump the entire box in her brother's bed.  BIG mess.  While still chatting on the phone, I informed both boys that they needed to clean up her mess.  Specifically, that they needed to salvage the cereal and put it back in the box.

About 5 minutes later, I was informed that it was clean but I needed to empty the hand-vac cause it was full.  Full of Cheerios. That ended my phone call.

I decided to get creative with their punishment.  I told them to go get their piggy banks.  They did, with tears.  I then explained that the box of Cheerios cost $2, but the loss was only half a box so the cost would be $1.  Then, to illustrate grace, since they weren't the ones who made the mess, just the ones who failed to clean it as directed, I would only charge them half a dollar.  I told them to each hand me a quarter and implored them to follow my directions next time. 

Feeling very good and puffed up about my mad parenting skills, I hear one boy say to the other as they walked away, "Well that wasn't bad. Only a quarter!"  "Yeah," says the other, "No biggie."

(SIGH.)