It’s become glaringly obvious that Madeline is mastering the
art of The Stall. The version that I seem to have the least patience for is “I
want/need something”. It usually plays out in the kitchen, before bedtime, and
what she’s wanting is a pre-bed nibble of something, but she doesn’t appear to know
what, exactly. She abruptly rejects every single snack possibility that I can
think of (“No! Not that! I waaaaaaant something!), which is beyond annoying - I
end up suggesting at least a dozen different things, and I think that this
little game gets old by the time I roll out Suggestion #5, or five whole minutes have elapsed.
Tonight, this scene occurred at Chapters, while I was buying
a few birthday gifts. I didn’t mind buying Madeline a $6 picture book because I
do feel bad that all of her beloved and dog-eared books are enroute to Bangkok and the bedtime story selection at
both of her grandmothers’ houses is small. Except that it took literally thirty
minutes to find a book because she didn’t know what she wanted (“No! Not that!
I neeeeeed something!”) but apparently, she didn’t want any of the dozens of
paperbacks I showed her. Ugh. I am not entirely sure that it’s reasonable of me
to expect that a nearly-three-year-old will act 100% gracious about being given
a gift, but I think that Madeline was coming in under 15% tonight. I’m hoping
that her tiredness was at least 65% to blame …
We have this too...but Sadie says, "Noooo. I want somethin-nelse!"...never something else, but always somethin-nelse!
Posted by: ann | June 27, 2007 at 09:28 PM
I think Auntie Ada slipped in a Berenstien Bears book dealing with the subject matter as a "birthday gift"...
Posted by: ADA | July 06, 2007 at 12:42 AM