My son had an idea yesterday that dad could teach cooking lessons each week. He thought it would be good to charge five dollars, he said. And then he added, “per month”. The conversation expanded into what each of us could teach as a class in our family with my son deciding he would be best at telling people about glitches in video games and my daughter teaching braille using her smart brailler.
My husband said he would teach his first lesson if my son was interested, tonight, with making pasta. At the time, my son was very interested but he was occupied tonight when dinner preparations began and had a very hard time transitioning. He yelled that he hated cooking. He didn’t want to learn how to cook. He didn’t mean him, when he was talking about lessons.
So my husband used some reverse psychology on him and told him he didn’t want his help and anyone who was that rude wasn’t someone he wanted to teach. That made my son more angry about the situation and he shouted out, “you’re an idiot!” to my husband. We’ve never heard either child say that before and it was most certainly not okay, so my son got sent to his room.
He begged to be allowed to help. He cried. He slammed the bedroom door. My daughter complained and whined that she wanted to help (she always does) but was told this time it wasn’t her turn. That made her more angry and more complaints ensued.
My son calmed down and he was allowed to come back down and apologize and then had a great time making angel hair noodles from scratch with his father. His sister, in the meantime, couldn’t let anything alone and even with some new paint markers I had occupied her with, refused to stay out of the kitchen situation—so she got sent to her room too.
Her anger was pretty impressive. With the door shut she screamed and yelled for twenty minutes, until dinner was ready. But once both children say down at the dinner table they were polite and well-mannered. It wasn’t pleasant for anyone this evening, but hopefully they learned something from the experience. Hopefully.
The Big Boy Update: My son wanted to know why my husband never laughs when tickled. Dad told him it was because he had willpower to overcome the tickle sensation. My son tried one more time to tickle him and when he failed complained, “aww, why can’t you for once not let it bother you?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter got a toothbrush from school a while back. She loved it and wanted to use it over her sonic one and we let her for a while. We told her tonight was the last night she could use it and then we had to throw it away. She asked me to take a picture of the front and the back of the toothbrush, “so I can remember it”, she said.
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