Three: a study in irrationality and cunning
NS May 26th, 2009
Interacting with The Noble Child all day is at times extraordinarily frustrating and, at others, extremely amusing. A lot of what she says and does falls somewhere in between the two. Her inability to understand certain concepts while at the same time being able to exploit situations or people to get what she wants often takes me aback. This is what being three is all about. Take, for example, some recent antics.
At her 3rd birthday party
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you
Happy birthdaaaaay dear The Noble Child
Happy birthday to you
“Here’s your cupcake!”
[Takes a bite] “Oh thank you, this is deeeeelicious!”
(Two minutes later): “Mummy, I dropped my cupcake, can I have a different one?”
“Aww. Sure, here you go.” [Looks over in time to see TNC lick the icing off the top off then throw the rest on the floor behind her chair, where the previous cupcake had met the same fate and been discarded]
Upon refusing to eat her dinner and then locking me into the dining room and taking the key out of the door whilst I fed her brother
“I got the key, Mummy!”
“Child, you’d best put that key back in the door and let me out.”
“No! I don’t want to eat my chicken and cous cous. I want a biscuit.”
“You can’t have a biscuit if you haven’t eaten your dinner. Just unlock the door.”
“Look my face.”
“What?”
“Look my face, I said”
“But I can’t see your face, you’re on the other side of the door.”
“Listen to me when I talking to you! I’m Mummy and you’re me.”
“Oh, right. We’re playing that game, are we? Okay then, ‘Please let me out, Mummy!’”
“Not until you eat all your dinner up so you get bigger bigger bigger!”
“But I’m not hungry. I want to play! Pleeeease let me out?”
“No. I’m the Mummy and I say eat your dinner!”
“Okay, fine [gobbles up the last of the child's dinner]. All gone! Now unlock this door.”
[Opens door] “Good girl, you eat it all up! Now I get a biscuit.”
Damn, she’s good.
Trying to grasp the concept of the new sticker chart, whereupon she must earn five stickers for good behaviour to get a treat or reward
“Well done, TNC, you get a sticker for that!”
“Do I get a treat now?”
“No, not yet. You’ve got two stickers now so you must earn three more to get a treat.”
“Can I have more stickers now?”
“No, you have to earn them by doing nice things, like picking up your toys or eating your dinner or getting dressed without screaming. Once you get five stickers for doing those things, you can have a treat.”
“Yes, I’d like a treat.”
“Good, then you just need to do three more nice things and you’ll get one.”
“Can I have a treat now?”
Sigh.
On comprehending that she gets a sticker for sharing toys with The Noble Baby
“I was a good girl and shared my toy with him so that means I get a sticker!”
“Yes, that’s right, well done!”
[TNC grabs the toy back from her brother] “Hey, wait, that’s not very nice, you’re supposed to be sharing.”
“I *am* sharing, Mummy. Look, I give it back to him again. That means I get ANOTHER sticker!”
“It doesn’t really work like that…”
“Do I get a treat now?”
“Do you have five stickers?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t. You have four. See? One, two, three, four stickers. You need one more before you get a treat.”
[She grabs the toy out of TNB's hands again, causing him to wail] “Okay, I give it back to him now, see? NOW I get five stickers and NOW I get a treat. Hooray!”
[Trying to soothe crying baby and fed up with the whole thing now] “Yeah, whatever, go on then. Have your treat. Off you go.”
I pause and then call out after her: “But eat Daddy’s chocolate, not Mummy’s. You have to get ten stickers for that.”
- Antics of The Noble Child , Funny Ha-Ha , Parenting 101
- Comments(11)
Ingenious child. Must be a chip off the old block
. Reminds me so much of my 3 year old. It’s exhausting keeping up with their mental gymnastics, isn’t it??
wow – sounds like you’ve got a (too) smart cookie on your hands! here’s wishing you large reserves of patience for her teenage years!
I’m convinced it’s a girl thing – they are so darn wiley.
I must admit I’ve done what you did, given up and let her just get on with it. We’re breeding the next generation of world leaders, I’m convinced of it!
Sounds soooooo familiar! It’s girls…I’m convinced!
clever sausage, she is. i can just hear her little voice saying all of those things and spinning the situation to get her way. i have a feeling she’ll be talking her way out of many things in the coming years!
Very similar to my three year old! I hear you on the frustrating yet amusing. My son is three and a half, and we are very much in the frustrating camp lately. Pushing buttons constantly, tantrums, manipulating to get his own way. Thankfully I have a five year old who emerged from all this three year old crap unscathed, and I am holding out hope this kid will too.
We have sooooo BTDT with the sticker chart too – I had to give up eventually. But the “you should be intrinsically motivated to have good behaviour without stickers” is kinda falling on deaf ears here
Wait, wait. What you’re telling me is that it gets harder after the terrible twos? This parenting thing is a scam.
Kids you gotta love ‘em
Questions from Poppy in the supermarket queue
•Poppy ..” Why did God make wasps ?”
•Mummy..”So we would appreciate winter”
•Poppy.. ” Why is a house called a house, and a horse called a horse, and how do we know that maybe somebody in the olden days got it wrong and a house is supposed to be called a horse and a horse is supposed to be called a house ?
•Mummy..” Because it doesn’t sound so funny to say ” You look like house’s arse”
•Poppy.. ” Hmmm, Why is blue called blue ?”
•Mummy.. “Because it’s not called pink”
•Poppy (in an incredibly loud voice).. “Why does that lady ( the cashier) have a moustache ?”
•Mummy… … Stunned silence.
•Cashier… … Stoney silence.
•Poppy..” Why don’t daddies have the babies ? – daddies would be good at having babies”.
•Mummy.. ” GUFFAW ! – because if they did the human race wouldn’t exist anymore, and you wouldn’t be around to ask all these questions” .
I think you have met your match in your daughter!
Star charts never worked for me. The kids (like yours) spent too much time working out how to buck the system than get the rewards. Or they simply said “I don’t want a treat”, and didn’t bother with it. Or “that’s not a big enough treat…” Or we would complete the chart, they’d get the treat, and then they wouldn’t see any point in continuing with whatever bit of good behaviour it was “unless I can have another chart and another treat”. I got hoist on lots of petards that way.
Sharing – a difficult concept to grasp but amazing how quick they get it when they want to be shared with.
Your house sounds very like mine!
My most famous moment of being out logic-ed by a 2 year old was during potty training. We spent a lot of time saying how much Bob/Thomas/whichever cartoon character was on the pants didn’t want to be wet so lets not wee. Sadly I then bought some pants with boats on. He weed on them incessantly. Boats, you see, want to be wet. Curses!
I love the way you made her eat daddy’s chocolate and saved your own – a girl after my own heart. My eldest two are exactly the same, very manipulative, it’s a girl thing.