Dashiell's a wealth of knowledge.

He might be getting it!!!

Today we went to the mall early to chat with the lovely new Lush manager. Dash, knowing we were near Chapters, had been asking since we got there to play with the trains. That was all well and dandy until we left Lush and started heading to Chapters. The melt down started when he wanted the buttons undone on his blazer. Then he wanted them turned (?). The he wanted the blazer off. Then he wanted it on. When I said “You just asked to take it off.” he threw himself on the floor and rolled around. I asked him if he didn’t want to play with the trains, to which he responded yes, he did, and stood up. But then instead of following me to the store he proceeded to run away and in random directions and shout “No!” so I said fine, no trains, and had to pick him up and carry him, kicking and screaming, off to the car. Once in the car, we had a conversation talking about why he wasn’t getting to play with the trains (When mommy says come on, you have to come too. If you don’t listen to what I say, that means you don’t get to do something you want to do. If you behave nicely, then we do something you want to do etc, etc).
Later on he asked to play with the trains again. I said “You’re not playing with the trains because you didn’t behave nicely. Next time you have to behave nicely and then you can play. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah. It means I don’t cry anymore.”

By GEORGE. I mean, I don’t know if that will be a thought in his head next time he’s upset about something (or nothing) but it’s gratifying as hell to see him make his own, correct, conclusion about a conversation we had with regards to a behavior that we had not at any time explicitly discussed. Smarty pants.