Rash suggestions

Throw down a challenge, and the kid is going to take it.

Yesterday Isaac was happily washing dishes in the kitchen sink. I noticed he was crossing his legs and squirming from the waist down, even as he continued busy at his work, so I asked him if he had to pee. He denied it. I didn't believe him, but I said, "Okay. Just pay attention to what your body is telling you."

A few minutes later he said, "I have to pee." I figured the need must be fairly urgent -- it had been at least four hours, plus he had been running the water -- so I tried to hurry him along. Instead he began to stall. First he had to rinse all the suds off his hands, then he needed to dry them, and then he simply sat down on the chair in front of the sink.

When I finally got him to leave the kitchen, instead of following me to the bathroom he grabbed the handle of his shopping cart and wheeled it in the opposite direction. All along I had been good-naturedly nagging him to get into the bathroom, and I finally got mad and yelled his name. He yelled back, "I'm busy!"

"Fine," I said with exasperation. "Do you want to pee in your pants?" His face lit up. This struck him as an intriguing option, probably because he recognized it as a way to get back at me.

"Yes," he said. "I'm going to pee in my pants."

I gave up. I had already made a mistake by trying to force him to go into the bathroom, instead of trusting him to get there on his own, and now I had compounded it with my rash suggestion. There was no way out. "If you really want to pee in your pants," I said, "you can. Just go outside to do it."

He went outside onto the patio, where he promptly peed in his pants.

I didn't get angry. It was my suggestion, after all, so it's not like I could blame him. I did take my time, however, bringing him a change of clothes and helping him get cleaned up. And I did mention that he would have gotten back to his playtime much faster if he had just peed in the toilet in the first place.

- - - - -

It was a similar rash suggestion on my part that led to his falling asleep in a chair in his room at 10:30 last night. I had been trying to get him to stay in bed, first, and in his room, second, neither of which were working. Eventually I said something like, "Well, you don't have to get back in bed, but you are not leaving this room again. You can sleep on the floor if you want to."

Instead he climbed into the armchair and was asleep about 45 seconds later. Hey, now that I think more about it, maybe I'll try it again tonight.