GIVE IT BACK TO THE STORE!

If the title of this post sounds like I’m yelling at you, then you’re getting the tone correct.   That was said to us, multiple times today, by my son.   But before we get to that line, let me catch you up…

My son loves his iPad.   He loves spending time on it.   He’s learned some pretty interesting things on it, has mastered some skills and can use words and phrases that make him sound impressive even though he’s just repeating them from something he’s played or watched.   We limit the time he’s allowed on the iPad but if you’re visiting us on vacation or the weekend you might think us bad parents because those are the times he’s allowed to have it.

There have been “incidents” with the iPad.   Namely screen breaks and dents.   And we could have prevented them I am most certain but for the most part my son is careful.   But mistakes happen and hey, I just dropped my cell phone in the toilet so I can’t really talk about being one-hundred percent careful because I’m clumsy and frequently irresponsible.

My son most recently has had very stringent rules on where and how he can use his iPad.   He’s been okay with that (barring a few forgetful incidents).   But a new issue arrived—his case, my husband’s old case since it was my husband’s old iPad, was falling apart.   So we had to get him a new one.

My husband went out today to run errands and got my son a more sturdy case, similar but different to the old case and we thought (incorrectly) the case with the new features would be received positively.   Sometimes my son handles things well, but he dislikes change, especially when he hasn’t been prepared for it in advance.

My son was inconsolable.   So much so that he didn’t even want to use the iPad.  It had been tainted by the new case.   He tried to tear off the old case multiple times saying, “give it back to the store!”   He laid on the floor and moaned and wailed.    We were firm.  I tried to be understanding and then I asked him why he didn’t like the new case.   And it boiled down to change.

The took the old case (which he was holding on to with a death grip) was fuzzy on the inside he showed me.   And the new case wasn’t.   The old case folded three times to prop up the iPad and the new case did the same thing, but in a different way.  Also, the old case had the Apple symbol on it and, “I like Apple things”.   He just didn’t like the new case.

But the old case wasn’t keeping the iPad held in place and was falling off, we told him.   That didn’t matter.  He said. “I’m not going to give Daddy a Christmas present or a birthday present or any other presents from him ever again.”

It was time to go to the pool so we told him we’d keep the iPad until he was ready.   And he didn’t like that either.   But when he got home later this afternoon he had thought about it and I guess had processed the change because he said, “I think I do want to use the iPad with the new case, mom.”    Next time we’re going to have to remember to prepare him for change in advance.

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes to tell his friends what to do.  Sometimes they don’t like it at all but yesterday he had them doing chores he told me.   One of his friends was sweeping the floor and the four-year-old was dusting the dining room table off with the feather duster.  They all did such a good job they each got pompoms for helping out around the house with chores.   Interestingly enough, I didn’t even know my son knew where the duster was.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I was explaining how my daughter had half of something.   I said if you had two halfs then you would have one whole thing like two halfs of a pie.   She said, “yeah, you could glue the two pie halfs together and then it would taste disgusting.”