Monday, September 22, 2008

Negotiations & "How Abouts"

One of the things I'm both loving and hating about the 3's, are the negotiation skills these kids acquire. During a normal dinner or bedtime routine, we will find ourselves practically talking Alex off the wall. I find myself stumped at times, wondering. "What now". Luckily, Sean trumps me in this category and where sometimes I'd give the whining, sad faced little girl whatever she asks for, he sees right through her ploys and firmly takes over my pathetic attempt at solving the problem.

Most days our negotiations are around dinner. I never ask that Alex 'clean her plate' I do however ask that she try everything and eat a little bit of everything in order to get a dessert. They usually go something like this:

Mom: "Alex, eat 3 more bites"
Alex: "How bout, 2"
Mom: "How bout, 3"
Alex: "How bout 5"
Mom: "OK"

As long as it ends on her number, we're good.

Today we've had the following encounters.

Mom: "Alex, how about you help me clean up the toy room"
Alex: "How about you make me a snack"

Mom (to Alex & Caden): How about we go take a nice quiet time in our beds"
Caden: "How about we have a nice quiet time on the couch and watch a movie"


We win some, we lose some right?




2 comments:

Malisams said...

Haha, nice. I love it the little glimpses into Alex's *INHERITED* sass. :) Also, Alex and Caden? So cute together.

Remind me to tell you the story of CJ using his burgeoning power of reasoning against me a couple of weeks ago...funny stuff.

Anonymous said...

carrie: sean how 'bout help me pick up the house and fix the kids dinner.
sean (aka buster taint): how 'bout you get me a beer and the remote.