Postcards from the Edge II: A Ninety Second Attention Span

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. In a limited, small way.

The Strategic Redirect:
"Look! Balloons, Lauren!" (Please don't notice the Froot Loops conveniently placed at kid-in-shopping-cart height, right next to you. Please look at the shiny, attractive balloons over _there_. Oh boy, balloons!)

The Polite Fiction:
"Are you all done with your apple?"
"Done!"
"Are you _positive_?"
"Po tive!"
Hand her the remaining piece of apple, just to make sure, and down the hatch it goes. ("Positive" is apparently not firmly in her vocabulary yet.)

The Critical Distinction:
"Cacker!"
"Lauren, you have a wheat thin right next to you. Eat that, then you can have more."
"Cacker!"
"Lauren, you have one right there. Eat it."
"Don't let her get you," added my sister. "Ask her to say 'cracker please' if she wants one. Otherwise, she's just pointing them out to you."


The THX Paradox (The Audience Is Listening):
Lauren repeats whatever you said last. I inadvertently taught her "Stand still", "go boom", "whoa, nelly", "belay that," and a variety of other useful phrases I never realized were lurking in my own vocabulary. Unfortunately... she wasn't just listening to the polite words I used. The less polite, stub-your-toe-and-say-something-you-ordinarily-don't-admit-you-know words... well, now she knows the ones I know.

Dang it!

Postscript: Talking to K about the whole situation, I commented that toddlers would repeat anything and everything that had emotional emphasis to it, "Dang it!"

and then I heard, from the depths of the car's backseat, "Dang it dang it dang it dang it dang it dang it!"

Uh huh.