Penguins

Our son was just over 2 yrs old eating dry cereal at his little table. He decided to dump the cereal onto the table and eat from the table vs. the bowl. Needing to choose my battles, I decided not to engage- since after all, the cereal was on the table vs. the floor. No sooner had I turned my back when Beck used large sweeping motions with his hands knocking every Cheerio onto the floor. Now the battle had begun.

"BECK! Pickup those Cheerios, NOW." He replies, "No." As my blood pressure raises, I direct him, "Then go into time-out." Very willingly he walks over to the timeout spot. Eventually I come over and explain why throwing his Cheerios onto the floor is unacceptable. I tell him when he's ready to pick up the Cheerios, he can get out of time-out. After a few minutes and my patience continuing to erode, he picks up 1 Cheerio. I direct him to pick up the rest and he simply replies, "I can't, I'm a penguin." Thinking he's talking 'crazy-talk' I send the penguin back to time-out. Back and forth he goes, 1 Cheerio at a time, back to time-out...each time saying he's a penguin. Finally I take the bait, "What does being a Penguin have to do with cleaning up your Cheerios?!" He states the obvious, "Penguins don't have hands." Immediately I spun around with my back to him, my blood pressure lowers to its normal state as I burst out laughing. It was all I could do to leave the room to laugh- I couldn't let him see me laugh or he'd know he had won the battle. Having left the room to laugh so hard I cried, my husband had to finish up the discipline and make the handless penguin clean up all his Cheerios. Hearing my snickers, my husband joined me around the corner and said, "That was a good one! He got you there!"

Outsmarted by a 4 yr old

We had a play date with one of Beck's friends at our house. As kids typically do, he was being particularly protective and possessive of his toys and didn't want to share. Poor Rachel couldn't play with anything without Beck telling her it was his and she couldn't play with anything. We got after Beck and explained why he needed to share, etc.

Then Rachel wanted to play with his clay, and he clearly didn't want her playing with that either. So he says to her, "Do you like scary dragons?" Wondering where this leading question is going, I listen carefully to their conversation. Rachel replies, "No, not scary ones." Getting the response he wanted, Beck then replies, "Well this clay is dragon poop, you don't want to play with dragon poop, do you?" Disgusted with what she thinks she's holding, she throws down the clay and plays with something else. Beck looks at me and says, "I tried to share, but she didn't want to play with the clay." He got his way, and I had to give him credit for his creative manipulation. I then had to explain that his manipulation wasn't exactly acceptable either.

If he's doing this at 4 yrs old, what will he be doing at 17? I can't be one of those mother's who says, "Not my kid." I'll have to be the one who says, "It was likely my kid who started it."