all for 3 bites

recently cole took out this yogurt from the fridge to enjoy one saturday afternoon. when he was almost done eating it -- just shy 3 bites in fact -- he declared he was done and left it on the counter. to which i replied something like, "nice try buddy. please come finish it." and from then began the downward spiral which ended in cole locking himself in the bathroom and tearing all the toilet paper off the roll. normally cole would have just been a little bit mad, but this day was different because everyone had earned enough money -- doing something but i don't remember what at this moment -- and so there was a baskin robbins trip planned for after lunch. the lunch in which cole opened the yogurt. and the lunch in which cole was refusing to eat the last three bites of yogur.

now just in case you are thinking that we are super mean parents for making him finish the last three bites cause it's only three bites and so what's the big deal let me say the following:

1. we are not made of money so every bite counts.

2. yogurt is super expensive these days and is not essential so in our family it's definitely a treat to get it...so wasting is unacceptable.

and 3. hello! three bites. just finish it already. give me a break por favor.

the funny thing was that it was a total one man show. after cole insisted that he no longer liked vanilla yogurt -- a total non-truth -- i informed him in a non-mad tone of voice that in order to be able to go to baskin robbins with everyone and spend his money on ice cream he'd have to finish it. i mean, THREE bites. no big deal.

well...for reasons unbeknownst to us it was apparently a HUGE deal for cole. i preceeded to go upstairs and continue on with the day thinking nothing of my request. a little while later chas brought me the following letter from cole:

devan and i busted up laughing. isn't this a great letter? i mean come on...hate, cole. it almost felt like a rite of passage to receive hate mail from one of my kids. plus, at this point i still did not realize how upset cole was by the prospect of eating 3 now warm (yuck) bites of yogurt. little did i know he was in the process of really working himself up into a tizzy. a full blown lock yourself in the bathroom screaming and crying pull the toilet paper off the roll and punch the wall kind of a tizzy.

wow. it was crazy unusual for cole.

i let devan handle it :) until i overheard him say something about SIX weeks with no tv or computer. WHAAAAAAAAAT??? who was getting punished here?! time to step in. devan told cole he needed to put the toilet paper back on the roll. that went over like a lead balloon. after another while he finally relented and let devan show him how to roll it back on -- it was more than half the roll! -- and then he began the long process of re-rolling.

so devan took the rest of the kids to baskin robbins while i explained to cole that when he was done having his tantrum and rolling the tp AND finished the three bites we could go meet up with the rest of the kids. boy, aren't we nice? i think so.

so you know what cole did? he rolled up the toilet paper, came out of the bathroom, ate the three bites in TWO SECONDS like it was nothing and then smiled and said, "that wasn't so bad. can we go now?"

uh, yeah, we can go now. and oh by the way...

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!