Oh, my, I love it when mind games work on the kid

Can't get the kid to help clean up? Pile a bunch of stuff that's supposed to be in her room on the side of the stairs. Start whispering and tell her she's a secret agent and the evil secret agents have laid a trap for us on the stairs, and the only way to defeat them is to take 5 things off the stairs and put them away in her room. Then laugh discretely at a 3-year-old's version of being stealthy.

Kid about to have a meltdown because you can't find the magic wand that matches her new pajamas, and it's too late to start a real search for it before bedtime? Tell her you'll look for it in the morning, and that you know it's important to her so you'll write yourself a note, and then write in huge block letters on a piece of scrap paper, "FIND WAND." Watch with amusement as she inspects the note carefully, pronounces it okay, and traipses off to bed with no wand. Smack self in the head at the lost opportunity to write "GO TO BED YOU LITTLE WHINER" instead of whatever you told her was on the note. Realize that she knows enough sight words now to call you on it, and decide it's best you stuck with the truth