My son, the lovable, cuddly toddler that he is has leaped head first into the “terrible two’s.” I was hoping we could just skip this part of his life and move right into the “cynical nine’s” as I like to call them. Alas, it seems we’ll be wandering in the land of No for a couple years at least. What’s more, we don’t have a map for this part of the country.
Thomas responds to every question asked him with an emphatic “Noooooo!” It doesn’t matter what you ask him either. Even if we know he hasn’t eaten for 8 or 9 hours he will refuse to eat anything we give him until it’s fully his idea to do so.
“Do you want some broccoli?” (Normally he loves broccoli.)
“Noooooo!” He says.
“How about some sugar-laden Frosty Flaky Flippers Cereal?”
“Noooooo!” He emphasizes as he reaches for the cereal and gobbles it down. You see, it has to be his idea to eat, indeed, to do anything.
We used to be able to feed him by holding a spoon in front of his face saying, “Take a bite.” Now it’s, “Well, here’s the food if you want it.” Actually, we aren’t allowed to say or do anything, we just put some food on a plate in front of him and make a caveman-like gesture with our hand that means something like, “Here.” It’s vital that we never show the slightest hint of wanting him to eat, otherwise he won’t. We must remain completely indifferent to whether he eats or not.
The secret to getting him to do something, we’ve found, is to make him think that doing it was his idea to begin with. This is tricky and blatantly underhanded but hey, it works; and let’s face it, Thomas doesn’t play fair either. He still possesses that ability to bend us to his will with a soft “Daddy, please?” Oh, he knows what he’s doing and it’s down right manipulative. Darn that sin nature.
