Last night I was trying to get my son dinner, bath and bed. As usual we were playing outside for over two hours to have him rudely awakened to coming inside. My son would live out side and be the jungle boy if I let him. He loves outside no matter how long we are out there, he never wants to come back in. It’s a fight every time.
Tonight, was no different than any other night. He cried coming in and didn’t want to eat dinner. In the midst of this the neighborhood cat was stomping around and popped up to our door (it’s a glass door) and Cooper got so excited. So, trying to distract him and make him happy, I held him and out we went. We followed the cat around but this cat unfortunately was not scared of Cooper and wanted to be petted. Trying to scare him away as I did not want my son touching a stray cat, my great idea went south pretty quickly. Down Cooper went, around the house following the cat trying to pet him. Finally, the cat wanders off realizing not pets were being handed out. Crying once again, we head back inside to attempt dinner!
I’m starting to realize the evenings are everything but easy. My intentions are great, but do not work out in my favor most of the time. My husband gets home in the midst of the chaos unfortunately adding to the scene almost every night. Although his intentions are to come home and play with Cooper, his late arrival can be challenging with a tired, hungry boy refusing food. If you are following me, my patience has evaporated by the end of the day. :)
Tonight, after I got Cooper wrangled inside for the second time, Michael walks in the door at 6:40 (20 minutes before his supposed bedtime) to take him back outside….ugg all my hard work defeated once again. While they were out there, Michael took his dinner trying to sneak bites in and be helpful. Although this didn’t work, he started the negotiation process. Cooper is too young to negotiate and truly understand what that means but to my surprise Michael was able to negotiate one round of staying outside a little longer if he took a bite. Not sure if Coop really knew what he was doing, but this was quite the surprise to me. It was pretty cute to see the boys out there negotiating play time over chicken nuggets.
A few minutes later, we get him bathed and on to dinner one more time. I saw Michael had some chocolate chips that he snuck to Cooper without me seeing. He had one left and Michael tried to get him to do the same thing, take a bite of chicken and get the chocolate chip. That did not work and ended quickly. The desire for more chips were an immediate reaction that I was left to conquer.
I decided to test this theory and see if Cooper really knew what was going on and if he simply had me deceived that he was too young or if he simply has me wrapped around his cute little finger. Pulling out five small chocolate chips, I repeated the same thing. “One bite of chicken, one chocolate chip!” Finally, five minutes goes by and he’s just livid. I decide to put the chocolate chips away to not reinforce bad behavior as we have previously done.
As I put them on the counter things got worse, but only for a minute. I offered him the same thing “one bite of chicken (or strawberry), one chocolate chip.” He reached for the strawberry and proceeded to place it within his tiny mouth. He rapidly chewed it and received a chocolate chip. His cute little smile and poofy cheeks while trying to eat the strawberry and the chip at the same time was pretty adorable. Pointing his finger asking for one more, he grabbed another strawberry and received another chip. The third time, he reached for the last THREE pieces of strawberry and shoved all three in his mouth before beginning to chew. Super cute and smiling so large while juice dripped down his little chin was a laughing moment we both shared together. This moment made my day and to see him not only take to the negotiation process but to finally shove it all in so he could be done quicker was beyond me.
Showing me all the strawberries were gone!
We laughed together and he received the last three chocolate chips for such amazing behavior! OR….shall I say because he is the cutest child on the face of this earth and we are now sharing jokes together as mommy and son. :)
Moment of Truth: Once realizing my negotiation skills worked, it was a reminder that it wasn’t about negotiating but the simple fact he and I worked together and accomplished a task and it all ended in smiles. :)
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