Eli is at the point in his life where he may change his mind about what he wants on a minute-by-minute basis, but he absolutely positively knows what he wants right now. It’s like continually running into a wall that moves at random. He’s also very specific about what he wants, even as he has trouble articulating his desires all at once. “You — you move — you move your … your glass<\/i> and I put my octopus water onna coaster.”<\/p>\n
We get exhortations: “Stop that, daddy, stop that!” We get stage directions: “No, mom, you — you go and daddy, you stay here and sit on my rug and we play cars.” We get changable instructions: “I want crackers. No, I want hummus. No, I want ham and cheese and hummus. And milk. I want water.”<\/p>\n
This is all part of that independence thing that, were we smarter parents, we’d crush under our foot like a spider. But we’re not. We try to make him more<\/i> independent. We try to direct Eli as much as possible, guiding him towards choices that we can live with. Most of the time. Then there are the times where I revert to being two as well, leading to conversations like the following:<\/p>\n
Eli: Dad, we play cars. We play cars with these two cars. You get this car.
\nMe (pointing to an unused car): I want that truck.
\nEli: No, you get this car.
\nMe: No, I want that truck.
\nEli: No, you get this car.
\nMe: No, I want that truck.
\nEli: No, you get this<\/i> car.
\nMe: No, I want that<\/i> truck.
\nEli: No, you get this<\/i> car.
\nMe: No, I want that<\/i> truck.
\nEli: No, you — you get this car.
\nMe: No, I want that truck.
\nEli: No, you get this car.
\nMe: No, I want that truck.
\nEli: Okay.
\n(Eli turns to the bucket full of cars.)
\nEli: You get this grasshopper<\/i> car.<\/p>\n
True, I did eventually play with the grasshopper car, but I still count this as a moral victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eli is at the point in his life where he may change his mind about what he wants on a minute-by-minute basis, but he absolutely positively knows what he wants right now. It’s like continually running into a wall that moves at random. He’s also very specific about what he wants, even as he has trouble articulating his desires all at once….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t