It’s been fun to watch the differences between Sam and Mandy, but sometimes there’s also entertaining differences between myself and Geralyn in how we approach even basic parenting tasks. For example, when it’s Geralyn’s turn to give Sam a bath, she usually ends the ritual by wrapping Sam in a towel, sitting her on her lap, and singing “The Noble Duke of York,” complete with knee bouncing and hand motions. Sam loves this.
I, on the other hand, often coerce Sam into getting out of the tub by playing “Towel Zombie” in which I drape a towel over my head, start lurching around the bathroom, and shout “The towel has got me! HELP! It’s eating my brains and turning me into a TOWEL ZOMBIE! HELP!” Sam’s job is to shriek with laughter, lunge out of the tub, and yank the towel off my head at which time it attacks her own noggin, neatly drying her hair in the process. She also loves this, and I look forward to seeing which bath time ritual has the greater impact on her psychological makeup down the line.
Brain eating towels aside, Sam seems to be doing fine in the smarts department. She has, for example, learned to trick us into leaving her bedroom door open a crack after we put her to bed, so that we don’t hear it click open and she can thus creep downstairs to help herself to cookies. But when confronted with this fact she still displayed a decent amount of sensibility.
“Sam, do not take cookies from the pantry without permission.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re three and you thus lack the judgment to know how many cookies is enough.”
“Hum. I think maybe one cookie is enough.”
“…Okay. Fine. You possess the judgment to know how many cookies is enough. But still don’t do it, because I say so.”
This is, of course, completely unfair but still the prerogative of any parent.
So while Sam is developing her own skills at cookie larceny, her sister Mandy is developing some much more rudimentary ones. For example, last night she spontaneously started clapping. Geralyn exploded glee all over the place as a result, so Mandy seems to have caught on that this simple activity is something to be VERY proud of it. I swear, Mandy clapped for like 18 hours straight. She’d look at us, grin, and start slapping her palms together like “Hey, check this out! WOOOOOOOO!” I peeked in on her before going to bed and she was lying in her crib, clapping in her sleep. Whatever makes her happy, I say.
Did that conversation with Sam take place word for word?! I hope so, because I’d commend you for coming up with a real and succinct reason as to why she couldn’t have the cookie. Then when you fell back to the tried and true “Because I said so” you couldn’t possibly be accused of copping out. Awesome.
Yep, pretty much verbatim. I usually try to give Sam an honest answer, even if she’s unlikely to understand it. Even when she does, though Sam is often impervious to simple logic.