Thursday, June 28, 2012

Desperate Times

No, this post is not some belated archive of Easter pictures that I forgot to post.  I just took these pictures last week, when my child was having such an epic meltdown in the backyard that I thought someone was going to call the police.

Remember when I told you about Morgan "helping" David mow the lawn a few weeks ago? Well, that plan totally backfired.  You see, toddlers are quite literal people. So when I told her she could help, she thought I meant forever.  Like every time.  Until the end of time.  

When Morgan and I came home one afternoon and she discovered David was mowing without her, she literally fell apart.  She started wailing, yelling at David, "put the grass back on, Daddy - put it back!!!"  Clearly, that was not going to happen.  So I did what any loving and responsible parent would do - I bribed her with candy.

To seal the deal, I not only offered her an array of gummy goodness, I told her we would have a little Easter Egg hunt.  Except we didn't have any eggs, so I used plastic carrots.  You get the idea.

I thought about making this little adventure super challenging (you know, so she would keep crying), but eventually decided better of it.  So I hid the carrots where she was mostly likely to find them...right in front of her face.


My tactics worked.  The wailing in the backyard was soon replaced with squeals of victory.  The broken grass was quickly forgotten as Morgan moved on to growing her candy collection.




My relief, however, was short lived when I realized Morgan fully planned to eat all of her candy right there. Most likely all in one mouth full.

Here's my dilemma. I am not the mom to let her child eat all of her Halloween candy in one sitting.  In fact, we still have conversation hearts left over from February.  But you know, I decided not to pick this battle.  I handed her the entire pile and told her to dig in.  And she did.  And there were no tears.  It's just too bad she now wants to look for Easter eggs every time she hears a lawn mower.  

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