The other night was beautiful here, so we packed up dinner and went to the park to have a picnic. The park we go to has mulch covering the playground, however, and this is a problem. C likes to throw mulch when he’s Being Bad.<\/p>\n
So, we’re sitting on the blanket eating, and C decides to walk several steps away and start throwing mulch. J asks him to stop, and soon there’s an old-fashioned Battle of Wills taking place. Fortunately, I’m on the sidelines for this one. <\/p>\n
If you’ve never been in a Battle of Wills, this is a great example: J wants C to stop throwing mulch and come back to the picnic blanket. C wants to throw mulch. It sounds simple, right? There’s more to it. You see, J does not<\/em> want to have to get up, because doing so demonstrates that C is not listening to her. She wants him to obey because he wants to, not because he’s forced to. C knows this, and is trying to throw as much mulch as possible without making J get up. If she gets up, he knows he’s in Real Trouble.<\/p>\n Me, I’m handling N and carefully keeping a straight face. Here’s how the Battle of Wills ends: Me, I burst out laughing. As it sinks in what has happened, J can’t help but laugh too. C has won that particular Battle of Wills, using one of our own favorite tactics against us. <\/p>\n Note to new parents: be careful of The Distraction. It’s a two edged sword.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other night was beautiful here, so we packed up dinner and went to the park to have a picnic. The park we go to has mulch covering the playground, however, and this is a problem. C likes to throw mulch when he’s Being Bad. So, we’re sitting on the blanket eating, and C decides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[118,120,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-c","category-daddytales-embarassing","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-8Bv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
J (forcefully but not yelling): "I said put that mulch down."
C (pointing behind us): "Look Mama, a squirrel!"
J turns and looks: "You’re right, there is a squirrel!"
C throws mulch and runs to sliding board to play<\/p>\n