Kai's fascination with being doggie #2 has started getting totally out of hand. In particular, I can't do very much to keep him out of the dogs food and water bowls. It's really disgusting but I swear, 10 times a day I have to chase him out of the kitchen. He knows that he's not allowed, and will even lie to me about it now. NOW you may say, "But how in the world can a 14 month old child lie to you?!" Well, let me tell you. Yesterday I caught him heading towards the dogs water bowl. Half way across the kitchen I yelled at him to stop, "Kai! No doggie bowl!" What does my adorable, innocent, and totally dishonest child who can not talk yet do? He holds up the book he was carrying and points at the dog! "Mama! I'm bringing doggie my book! I wasn't even thinking about the doggie's water bowl! Honest!" SO I look at him sternly, point at the living room, and tell him quite firmly to get out of the kitchen, which he begrudgingly does after trying one more time to convince me that his real motives are to read the dog a book who just so happens to be minding her own business eating kibble. 2 minutes or so later I turned my back and that little beast (the baby not the dog) was in the dogs water bowl splashing up a storm! While this is totally adorable, and I can imagine completely irresistible to him to have this big bowl of water on the floor to play with, it's just gross. Not only that, but the second his hand touches the water it turns red in reaction to all the dog and cat backwash that's been sitting in that bowl all day, if not all week. That's just his hand. Sometimes he totally gets himself soaked before I can get to him. AHHHH!!!!! UGH!!!!! I've tried everything from speaking sternly, to yelling "No Doggie Bowl!" constantly, to giving him time outs (which I must say are rather effective in other circumstances because he hates being put behind any baby gate even if it is for only 60 seconds). Nothing has worked so I've started the hand squeezing rule to see if I can find some way to get my point across.
Now before everyone tears in to me about this, I was watching Kai with the cat. She's amazingly tolerant all things considered, but she does have her limit with him and when she gets there she'll whack him on the hand. I was watching this the other day and to my surprise he can predict her now. She was on the couch, he came over to her and started getting very wild and abusive. She looked at him and raised her paw and he STOPPED. Stopped cold in his tracks and looked at her rather cautiously, then when she put her paw down he began to pet her nicely. She's got him well trained so I decided that if my cat can do it and it works, I need to find something similar without doing him harm since nothing else is working. Every time I catch him in the dogs bowl I've been taking the hand that is actually in the water so there is no mistaking my intent and squeezing it hard once while saying "No doggie bowl!" Then I proceed to clean him thoroughly of dog and cat germs. Euch! I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this considering that my dog spends most of her existence licking my son's face, but still. Anyway, it's working. Kai is stopping short of the bowl, looks wistfully at it and points at it, but isn't going in.
This morning he tried a new strategy on both me and his nanny. He's got a toy train that when he pushes it's smoke stack it plays a song ad drives forward about 3 feet. This morning while I was getting ready for work and Mimi was preparing his breakfast he brought his train in to the kitchen, pointed it at the dogs water bowl, and pushed the smoke stack. The train headed straight for the water bowl, the baby tore off after the train, Mimi and I stood astounded and laughing while the train stopped, and Kai turned around to us, sat up and pointed at his train up against the water bowl as if to say, "I didn't do it! The train came here by itself! Can I play now?" It was hysterical, but I feel bad. I'm thinking I should give him a bowl of water to play with on the bathroom floor at night or something since he loves it so much. We'll see.
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