Mother Genna

We have been spending the weekend babysitting the Thomas kids with the Swishers while Jen and Bryce are down in Southern California for the weekend. Jen is running a marathon as a fundraiser. That's right - a mother of five running a full marathon. Pretty cool, eh?

Genna has displayed some new tactics that she is developing to get what she wants - but she has needed younger toddlers to do one of them. The first thing she does is what I call 'parent shopping.' Just like an unscrupulous lawyer will 'judge shop' until he is confident he will get the verdict he wants, Genna will go from parent to parent, and aunt to uncle, until she gets the answer she wants. If daddy says she can't have candy, she will ask mommy, and then other authority figures until someone says yes. This has made it doubly important that Annie and I be on the same wave-length.

Her second tactic is a mimicry of Annie's time-out technique. We were all at the McDonald's play area yesterday when we looked over to see that Molly (one of the Thomas kids), was standing against the fence and crying. It turned out that Genna had put her on a time out for not listening to her. We have no idea what she was demanding her little cousin to do. We told her that she couldn't do a time-out - only adults could. But only a minute later, Maggie was being placed on a time out by Genna. When Genna explained why Maggie was on a time-out, she used the same words and gestures that Annie uses when she places Genna on a time out.

It is amazing how and what kids learn.