Mar 17 2009
On Becoming Devious
Jonah has always been a sweet a little guy. Those days may be coming to a close.
Don’t get me wrong, he’ll always be our little bundle of joy, etc. But in the last week or so, we’ve seen the beginnings of some sparks of some hints at true deviousness. There is a twinkle in his eye that was not there before. I’m not sure what this means going forward, but I’m guessing that when a toddler’s ego awakes and he discovers that his actions can have a favorable influence on his surroundings, things could get dicey. Hopefully in a good way.
A case in point:
The other day, Jonah was eyeing our little stash of Sesame Street DVDs. I told him, “Stay out of the DVDs Jonah.” He proceeded to walk over to the DVDs.
“Don’t pull out a DVD,” I said.
He pulled one out and sat down.
“Don’t open it,” I said.
He opened it.
“Don’t take out the DVD,” I said.
He took it out.
“Don’t try play it in the DVD player,” I said.
He opened the cabinet and tried to stick it into the DVD player.
Julie has told me that this was not the way to handle the situation, which of course, is brutally apparent in hindsight. Therefore, if anyone knows how to control a toddler’s actions to make them behave, I’d appreciate it.
5 Responses to “On Becoming Devious”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
We saw that look in his eye last week. GOOD LUCK!!!
I still think your “instructions” were just giving him ideas!
HaHa! This is hilarious. The last time we babysat we thought he got that twinkle going on every time he thought he was getting away with something! Of course we Grandparents get a kick out of it.
Chris, this is exactly what I was afraid of. Exactly. Good luck to us both. All I know is that Jonah will be driving first.
I agree with Julie - you were basically telling him what to do without wanting to… we all learn from our ‘mistakes’. Glad I can learn from some of your experiences