Manipulation 101

A couple of weeks ago, Alex cut his finger pretty bad, and while I'd rather not go into detail about how it happened, suffice it to say that my laziness and stupidity might have been involved. Anyway, it bled a lot and we made a really big deal out of it, hugged him and coddled him and oh you poor thinged him. You know, the usual sorts of things a parent does when their child is gushing blood from any part of his body. We kept a Bandaid on it for a few days, despite the fact that it scabbed up overnight, and he pretty much forgot all about it at that point.

The following week, Alex's behavior started to reflect the "terrible" part of the "terrible twos", and thus, we were forced to incorporate the Spanky Spoon into our disciplinary regiment. I was dreading this stage and hoped that the Time Out corner would suffice well into his teen years. Alas, the Time Out corner just wasn't cutting it for such flagrant offenses as biting Mom for saying things like, "Alex, give me that knitting needle before you poke your eye out".

At one such moment last week, Alex had received several Time Out warnings for jabbing his sticky little fingers into my computer screen and was on the verge of reaching Spanky Spoon status. I gave him "the Look" and said, "Alexander Lloyd Evans, do you want a spanking?" He gave me his most pitiful, pouty face, stuck his thumb out at me, and said, "Boo-boo?"