Choice

She's a toddler, and, therefore, choice is a big deal.

Example:
She wants some vegetables, so she asks Mommy to see the carrots, broccoli, peas and corn. She wants the corn. We know this because for the last three nights she has had a heaping serving of corn. She's going to pick the corn, but she wants to see all of the vegetables. Daddy is instructed to go and retrieve the various bags of frozen organic vegetables from the freezer. She doesn't want the carrots. It has been weeks since the last time she had carrots. I make a choice. Three bags of frozen vegetables is plenty. Why should I carry the fourth?

The answer is simple. She is a toddler, and instantaneously realizes that I do not have the carrots. I am not even sure that she could see the pictures to reveal which veggie I have left out, but, somehow, she knows.

"Daddy!?!? Where the carrots?" she states with an air of incredulity.
"Darn." I mumble under my breath, which is a mistake.
"Mommy . . . why Daddy say 'Darn'?"

I don't hear the answer as I'm back at the freezer taking out the last vegetable. I have a moment of hope. Maybe this trip isn't wasted. Maybe she's going to pick the carrots. I know, in my heart, I am a fool for thinking this, but for a moment, I hope.

"Daddy, please put the vegetables down." She politely asks.

She's staring and grinning at the corn. In teaching, there is a way of attempting to gain answers from the reluctant student. It is called wait time. It is when, after a teacher has asked a question, the teacher pauses. The usual kid who always answers, of course, has his or her hand up the instant the question is almost completed, but still, in order to draw out those more reluctant students, the teacher waits. Sometimes it is as short as five seconds, but for the unpracticed, it seems an eternity. Tahlia appears to be using this tactic now. She is still staring at the corn. There is a wry little smile on her face as she stares at it. For a moment, the smile flees and she looks, with an unimpressed air, at the other vegetables, before returning her gleeful gaze back to the corn. She's going to pick the corn. We know it will be the corn. Three nights in a row the broken-hearted broccoli, the poor peas, and the melancholy carrots have all made the trek back to the freezer as the carefree corn is gobbled down, literally, by the handful. Her eyes are still on the corn, but she's using her wait time like a pro.

Slowly, as if she is picking a prized lobster, her hand begins creeping away from her body to point, regally, at the corn. She smiles as if the choice was unexpected.

One more time, the three unlucky musketeers of the garden are hauled back to the freezer.

Example two:
It's bedtime.

For the last four nights she has worn the pink pajamas with the two polar bears who are making a polar bear snowman.

For the last four nights, either Mommy or Daddy has laid the polar bear pajamas, along with the purple flower pajamas and the pink flower pajamas on the floor in front of Tahlia. She stairs intensely at the polar bear pajamas. She's going to pick the polar bear pajamas, but she needs all three laid out in front of her.

Tonight is no different. I place the polar bear pajamas on the floor, and, like a mongoose after a snake, she is questioning, "Daddy, where the other pajamas?"

I'm already reaching into the drawer. I know she's going to wear the polar bear pjs; she already has the look in her eye. I fetch the floral patterned ones.

She makes sure they are all laid out perfectly, then begins to stair intently at the polar bear pjs. The wait time is amazing. She picks up the polar bears and says, "This one." As if I should be suprised. I grin and help her into her clothes.

It seems tedious. It seems unnecessary. But in her little world where there really is so little choice, it is an easy way to help her to learn how to have control. Each time, she learns a little bit about the importance of making a choice, whether it is right or wrong, whether or not it matters, whether or not it is the same one she made yesterday.

Or maybe we humor her because of how cute we feel she is as she intently stares, grinning, at the choice she has already made.