Take yesterday for example, Charlie made it very clear that he is rational human being able to make decisions and follow directions. It was amazing.
Situation #1: Charlie, Otis and I were upstairs in the playroom. Charlie was randomly wandering the room, and I was half-heartedly playing fetch with Otis. To be honest, I was collapsed on the bean bag chair with this ridiculous cold -- it's been a week!
Anyway, I tossed Otis' toy and it got stuck behind Charlie's little piano. Otis went over and tried to get to it, but it was lodged between the piano and the wall. Jokingly, I asked Charlie if he would go get Otis' toy and give it to him. Charlie looked at me and toddled right over to the piano. He bent over and peered underneath it, stood up and peaked behind it, then paused and played a couple songs.
I had just resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to get up when Charlie reached behind the piano, grabbed the rubber quail and handed it to Otis. I don't know who was more surprised, me or Otis. Charlie just looked at me and grinned, then did a belly flop on Otis' bed! The kid is amazing.
Situation #2: Later in the evening, I was sitting on the couch and Charlie was doing laps through the kitchen, dining room, hall and living room. Thanks to his love of jabbering, it's always fairly easy to determine where he is, but suddenly it got quiet. Then I heard an unusual scraping noise and knew I needed to investigate.
I walked into the kitchen and found Charlie in the butler's pantry with the koozie drawer open, pulling out koozies and dropping them on the floor. His face when he saw me was priceless -- he definitely knew that he wasn't allowed in the drawer.
Of course, I immediately grabbed the camera off the counter to catch him red handed. I couldn't have been more surprised when I looked back -- Charlie was putting all of the koozies back in the drawer! He got all of them in but one -- which happened to have a stickier, non-neoprene texture. When I asked him to put that one back, too, he looked down at it and smiled, grabbed another one out of the drawer and put it away again, and grinned up at me. Obviously, I let him keep it. How adorable!
And yes, I realize that in order to truly teach him to follow directions and the importance of parental authority, etc, I really should have required complete compliance -- but how could I? I was overcome with pride in his ability to follow directions in the playroom and to clean up after himself in the kitchen. Truly amazing!
Caught!
Getting rid of the evidence
