Thursday, November 01, 2007

Starting Young

Yesterday I took Caleb with me on some errands. Foolishly I took him to a store that was floor to ceiling full of small and breakable pieces. I told him repeatedly not to touch anything which he then repeated back to me the whole time we were in the store, whilst touching everything in sight. Cute, but not exactly what I had in mind. Luckily, we are in Peru and his blond hair and blue eyes win over all Latinos so the shopkeeper was totally unconcerned by his lack of discipline. After leaving the store we needed to cross the street and when I grabbed his hand I realized he was keeping it in a very tight fist. I opened his fist and found a very small ceramic sheep that clearly had come from the store and that we had most definitely not paid for. My 21 month old child had officially become a shoplifter! We went back to the store to return the sheep and I tried explaining to Caleb the problem with what he had done. But, I don't think it registered since he smiled the whole time and said over and over again, "no touch, no touch, no touch"!

6 comments:

Celia Fae said...

I wish you would have included some prayers and repentance in there. Then you could have sent that story to the Friend.

You should have kept the item. He deserved it for not breaking anything.

Anonymous said...

Don't let him kid you - He know what you're saying. Just repeating it is way of destracting you. He stole it on purpose.

He always doesn't care about the signs telling him that "this is not for babies" when we all know he reads perfectly well...
~ Auntie Lane

Nate and Sina said...

Ruby stole a book from the Louvre...I think she has a future in the criminal business because I have a feeling that it is a pretty secure building. Wouldn't want the two criminal masterminds to team up on us.

D-dawg said...

We all steal at some point in our lives right? He is starting a bit young though! (o;

Adrianne said...

Doesn't matter if he doesn't understand, you'll tell him the story again someday and he will convert it into a good sacrament meeting talk.

Natalie C. said...

I learned a really cool thing about communicating with kids under age 3. They can't always translate negative instructions into positive ones. When they hear, "Don't touch." What they really hear is "Touch." So I learned this at preschool co-oping orientation & we are supposed to give the kids positive instructions like, "Hands by your sides." instead of "don't touch." or "Quiet voices." instead of "Don't yell." Too bad I learned this after Mia turned 3. I swear I probably scarred her for life by getting so frustrated with her at times.

 

Design by Custom Blog Designs/FreeStyleMama Creations