Friday, August 14, 2009

Backfire!

Don't lie to your kids. They might not have the reasoning skills to process the information you're giving them correctly. They will also supplement their lack of reasoning with imagination. Or even worse, they might just take you literally.

We're sticklers for teaching our children to clean their own messes. MissMess has been cleaning up her toys since she could walk to the toy bin. When it comes to the bathtub, we have a tub toy bin and we ask her to collect her toys and put them away before leaving the tub.

Unfortunately, she's not always compliant with these requests and we're completely stubborn about her doing this every time. So, at some point, Mr. Awesomeness felt it was a good idea to tell her that if she doesn't pick up her toys, they'll get sucked down the drain with the water.

I forget this and often pull the plug on the tub before even requesting that she clean up. The screams can be heard around the neighborhood. She frantically scrambles, crying, for every toy. Because she's freaking out, though, she doesn't always make it into the bin with the toy before moving on to the next.

So all that time I spend getting her calmed down with a nice, warm, fun bath is for nothing. Now I'm dealing with a frantic, crying mess. Way to go Dada.

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