Four Going on Forty

Today after Theo's swim lesson, we stopped by Target to look for a swim noodle to use at our community pool. They didn't have any, but they do have a Starbucks kiosk, and given my weakness for iced mochas, I stopped to get one. Theo asked for a "sparkly" cake pop (a little two-bite bit of cake on a stick--kind of like a lollipop), and he had been pretty good at swimming and music class, so I bought one for him. But I really wanted him to be quiet on the ride home, as Sam was sleeping, so I bought the pop and told him that if he used his "inside voice" all the way home, then he could have his cake pop when he got home. If he raised his voice (this is a constant battle lately), he wouldn't get the cake pop. As luck would have it, he raised his voice. So I told him he had lost the cake pop. This was cause for much distress and yelling.

However, he started to shape up fairly well after a couple minutes, so I decided I'd give him a chance to earn it back. "Theo," I said, "you need some quiet time when we get home. It's a little late for a nap, but I want you to spend an hour of quiet time in your room. You can look at your books or rest. If you can do that quietly for an hour, with no raising your voice and no kicking the wall [another constant battle in our household], then you can have your cake pop back after that."

Theo, ever the negotiator, wasn't terribly pleased with the idea of a whole hour on quiet time, so he tried to negotiate. His closing argument left me both amused and rolling my eyes:

"Mommy, I am just going to go to my room and look at my books and stop all this fussing! Then when I stop whining and fussing in a couple minutes, I am going to open my door and come downstairs, and then I am going to eat my sparkly cake pop! And it is going to be very tasty. And that is the end of the discussion, Mommy!"

Well, yes, it was the end of the discussion, but only because I wasn't going to argue with a four-year-old--even one who thinks he's forty! (And yes, I won in the long run--he spent a lovely quiet hour in his room looking at his books. And earned back his cake pop. End of discussion!)