Today, I insisted that Helen take a nap. She did not want to. I told her it didn’t matter. She protested. I wanted her to sleep on her bed. She bartered with an offer to sleep on the sofa in the playroom.
Fine.
About 45 minutes into her nap, something woke her up and she came upstairs, whimpering. She crawled into my lap, and put her head down on the kitchen table, trying to go back to sleep.
I was not a satisfactory sleeping surface, apparently, so she kept complaining and protesting. Finally, I said, “I don’t think you were quite finished with your nap. Would you like to go back down to the sofa?”
“NO!”
“Well, you can always go sleep on the LIVING ROOM sofa.”
This is, apparently, a spectacular treat.
She tried to sleep on my lap some more, but finally gave up and finished her nap on the Living Room Sofa.
And she woke up happy.
Just like me, Helen is happy when she finishes her projects. 🙂
It’s amazing what they consider “treats”, isn’t it? And it all depends on how you say it.
One day I promised the kids dessert if they finished their dinner, not thinking they were actually going to finish it. They did, so I went to the cabinet to find something. I told them in a very excited voice that they get to have some PRUNES that night! They were so excited it was hysterical!
Alice would get really really REALLY excited about prunes. I have a stockpile on top of the fridge for myself, and I don’t let her have them very often at all. She doesn’t need assistance in that area.
But if I get the prunes down for myself, she must have PruneDar or something, because she is RIGHT THERE.