“Mommy, I wanna too-tee,” both my toddlers asked me, in their cute, toddleresque kind-of way.
“We don’t have any cookies right now, but why don’t we all get dressed, and go to the store to get some, okay?!”
I had to go to the store to pick up a few things, anyway, so this just made it more fun for them (and hopefully more obedient).
(What? Cookie bribery is an effective parenting tool. Ahem.)
After piling in the car and making it a mini-event, leaving the store unscathed and intact (whew!), I unpacked bags from the car while the kids were too busy playing outside to remember we’d even bought cookies to begin with. (Yet another effective parenting tool – the art of distraction.)
Out-of-the-blue, my four-year-old suddenly remembered we had chocolatey goodness, and magically appeared out of nowhere at my husband’s desk. She made several obnoxious, yet unsuccessful pleas to get a cookie from him, to no avail. After her dejection, she came to me, playing the Mom-card perfectly, in all her curly-haired cuteness,”Mommy? Tan I pwease have the too-teez we boughted?”
Thud.
(Death by cuteness is a highly effective kid-tactic. Damn, she’s good.)
I immediately scooped her up, kissing her eleventy-thousand times, her giggling, me nibbling, and decided to give into her cuteness. My one stipulation was for her to share that cute with my husband, sitting quite grumpily at his desk, while I opened up the box of Newman’s Os. She agreed and sauntered over to him, celebrating her win with the grin on her face, sitting upon his lap as if he were Santa. As I walked over, peering from behind his laptop, he asked her, “You know, baby, I didn’t hear you say my favorite word to mommy…”
And before she could utter “Please,” she saw my hand, and screamed out, “TOO-TEEZ!!!”
“Um, not that word, baby.” #fail
(Kid 1, Parents 0.)
After a few nibbles, she got down and shuffled off, skipping in jubilation with her cookies in hand – immediately making a bee-line to the other kids. Outside. Where she loudly proclaimed to all of them (including neighbor kids) how she just scored two cookies from me. Suddenly we hear Baby Dude calling out, “I WANT TOO-TEEZ TOOOOOO!”
(Kid 2, Parents 0.)
I rule. Only not. #cookiegivingfail
Never miss a thing! Subscribe today for all kinds of crazy parenting fun!
