Yesterday’s exchange with my 6 year old son explains why the kids are running late to school most days:
Me: Max, put your dishes in the dishwasher.
Max: I am not Max, I am Alpha Rex.
Me: Alpha Rex, put your dishes in the dishwasher.
Max: Alpha Rex does not have that program.
Me: (push buttons) Now he does. Alpha Rex put your dishes up!
Max: Alpha Rex has no control pad.
Me: Yes he does, I glued it on.
Max: Glue does not stick to Alpha Rex.
Me: Yes it does because I put an invisible force field on it.
Max: Alpha Rex has no program for dishes. Only cannons.
Me: Then use your cannons to put up the dishes.
Max: Alpha Rex does not compute.
(I really don’t remember how the rest of it went, just that at some point my husband told me I couldn’t win against a 6 yr old and I think I told him that Alpha Rex doesn’t need toys so I’ll just remove them and then the dishes were put away.)
Ha-ha! Been there. Done that… more or less. It’s so true – you try to work with them in these situations sometimes – but it seems like it almost always has to come down to threat of punishment. I have to say though – his responses were fantastic, the boy is clearly pretty darn sharp 🙂