A few days ago, at dinner, Jacob was very frustrated that he couldn't have any dessert until he finished the food on his plate. He finally got it all eaten except two small pieces of celery. Here's how dinner progressed from those two little pieces of celery:
1st try: "Mommy, I DON'T WANT to eat my celery! Give me dessert now!"
2nd try: whining "Celery is yucky! I don't want to eat it!"
3rd try: Silently putting them under his plate to hide them. Nevermind that I was watching the entire time, his plate was sitting cock-eyed on the table or even that the plate was see-through glass. "Look Mommy! My celery's all gone!" ...mmmm...try again. (grumpily) "Next time I want a plate that you CAN'T see the table through!"
4th try: Plate is empty but it occurred too fast for chewing. 'Jacob, we don't throw food on the floor. Here's some more celery. The next time you throw food on the floor, you will get down immediately.'
5th try: Still sitting at the table with two pieces of celery on his plate. It's now bedtime. 'Jacob, time to get down and go to bed.' "NOOOOOO! I want dessert!" Sorry Jacob, We'll try again tomorrow buddy.
Results? Jacob still complains about having to finish his dinner (which is approximately HALF the size of Rachel's) to get dessert but he hasn't tried throwing food on the ground again.....Yet. It sure brought back a lot of memories for me of what WE used to do as kids in our family. We were quite creative...it makes me wonder how much my mom was watching the whole time we thought we were being sneaky!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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5 comments:
too bad you don't have a dog!
that was me, not Lee
wow. you are the epitome of patience. I don't think I'd be able to sit there and calmly respond to all that whining. Hopefully I'll be more patient by the time we get to that stage.
In my defense, Marja, jacob can get down without eating the celery. He just can't have dessert. :)
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