Tricks of the Trade

Little Man is starting to catch on in ways that I wish he would stay naive to for a while longer.  The other day we were all in the basement and Little Man asked me if I would play store with him.  I looked around at the messy playroom and said "Sure, go get me the cash register and then you can go shopping.  The only rule is that you can only buy things at my store that you find on the floor!"  He ran off to get the cash register and then began shopping from the toys on the floor.  It only took about 2 minutes before he looked up at me and proclaimed, "Hey, you aren't really playing with me, you are just trying to get me to clean up!"  I laughed and laughed that he saw through to my true motive and then we both decided that he could be the shopper and Peanut and Sweet Pea could help with the "restocking" of the purchased toys. 

Peanut is learning some tricks of his own.  The other day I saw that he wanted a toy from Sweet Pea and he told her that if she gave him the toy he would give her a treat.  So she gave up the toy and then he yelled that he had tricked her because he didn't have any treats.  She marched over to me, told on her brother and of course, I decided that she could have a treat for sharing but Peanut didn't get one because he lied - I am not sure that he learned the lesson though because later on I overheard this one way conversation " I think you really want this stick.  Tell me if I give it to you, I can have a treat and then yell tricked you to me"  Sweet Pea said no and Peanut started to cry.  I guess there are easy ways and hard ways to earn treats in this house....Peanut hasn't got that quite figured out yet.

So the other day we were all eating breakfast together and Sweet Pea yells "Look Mama, a bird!" and points behind me.  I turn and look behind me and when I turn back around my strawberries are gone.  Yeah, Sweet Pea has learned early and from the best.