Sunday July 3, 2005
Oy, I have a VERY persistent little guy. Yesterday was one of those days he was determined to what he wanted to do, without regard to anything the grownups wanted. An example: Robert brings his external hard drive over when he comes over and they work on his web design stuff. At one point (who am I kidding…5 times or so) we instructed him not to touch the hard drive. He listened, but threw many fits over this, which I understand…it is a new thing and he wants to look at it. However, it is something that he should not be messing with. A good two hours after one tantrum, he comes into the room, sees that his Dad and Robert are not at the computer desk (they are standing in the middle of the room talking back and forth as Zach makes popcorn), Zane looks over to the hard drive on the computer desk, walks over, takes his pointer finger and drops it onto the middle of the hard drive, leaves it there for a second, and walks away with a smug little look on his face. Little stinker! I know he didn’t realize I saw him do it, and was glad because I was trying not to laugh at his utter persistence and it would have been really hard to discipline him effectively. After a day of battles, it just so wasn’t worth it. Funny thing was, after that incident, he was not NEARLY as defiant. Memory of an elephant and doggedly persistent. Those are great traits to have as an adult, but so hard to deal with as a parent.
Another funny. We will call this one “a 3 year old’s guide to problem solving”.
The problem: Don’t want to quit playing & listening to music in his room, but is hungry for the leftover spaghetti in the fridge. (no red sauce, btw…just spaghetti) His solution: take a massive fork full, carry the fork full from the table to his room. Eat it. Come back with empty fork and get another bite. lol. Watching him oh-so-carefully carry gobs of spaghetti is worth the show because a piece will fall off every 3 or 4 steps, and he will lean down to pick it up, usually resulting in another piece dislodging itself. It probably takes a full 2 minutes to get all the way back to his room with it. After returning for his 3rd fork full, I suggested taking the whole plate with him. He looked at me like “whew..that sounds a LOT easier” and promptly grabs the plate and carries it his room.
