Painful Lesson

While patience is definitely not one of my strengths, I proved to myself this afternoon that I have much more than I previously thought...

During round two of play-doh fun this afternoon, Charlie again dumped the entire bucket of tools and accessories on the floor.  This time, rather than pick them up for him (since I didn't have the deadline of a rapidly darkening grilled cheese sandwich), I helped him out of his seat and instructed him to pick up the toys and put them in the bucket.

My initial request was simply ignored, and he wandered off into the living room.  Upon being brought back to the kitchen and re-instructed to pick up his toys, Charlie said, "No!"

A bit taken aback, I asked him again, more nicely, to pick up his toys and explained that since Charlie dumped them out, Charlie was responsible for putting them away.  His response? "No!" only louder this time.

So, we had our first round of time out -- the end of which would be up to him, when he was ready to pick up his toys.  He quickly agreed to pick them up, after asking for a hug, so I put him down on the floor.

Charlie then proceeded to go empty out all of the random gadgets he'd recently stored in the stock pot and ended up back in time out -- this time staring me down, fully aware that it was taking every ounce of my self control to keep from laughing.

Upon his release from time out, I sat down on the floor with him and instructed him piece by piece by piece to pick up his toys and put them in the bucket...all 26 letters, 10 numbers and various "tools."  This kid is stubborn - almost as stubborn as his mom!

What you may ask was the incentive behind this manual labor...since time out obviously didn't serve as much of a deterrant?  Water.  Yes, water, sipped out of a small plastic shot glass was the carrot I dangled in front of him, and that, along with vigilant reminders provided the necessary motivation to get the job done.

After barely preventing Charlie from dumping the whole thing out again, I got up to fill up his cup, and Charlie found two more tools in his high chair.  I offered to put them away (to keep him away from the bucket), but he insisted on doing it himself. 

I could probably convince myself that I just successfully taught Charlie the value and necessity of putting away his toys, but in reality I think that it's more likely that the key lesson here is that my son is a force to be reckoned with and my patience is going to get quite the workout over the next 20 years...