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!"