The Cowgirl and I have a deal - she makes her bed and practices her piano and I give her a dollar. That's how we do allowance.
And the piano thing really works. She doesn't complain about practicing and she's getting better.
The bed thing is just to teach her a lesson about work.
It doesn't really help me at all because I wait until she goes to school and remake it so it looks pretty.
She hasn't noticed yet. Which means my neurosis is not currently doing any harm. I think.
But this morning I asked her if she made her bed and she answered in the affirmative and I whisked her off to school.
When I got home I stepped in to "fix" it up a little. (I know- I am horrible that way. I have started a list of ways to defend myself when my children are complaining about me to a therapist. Not really. I'll probably push them off the couch and say, "so what is wrong with me?")
To my surprise, there was nothing to fix. Her bed looked like this:

And I did a little joyous hop and went on my way. Looks like my bed fixin' days are history.
The happy end.