Toddler Indecision

Last night, while mommy was at work, Tenley and I were playing at home when I realized that she had not eaten and might be hungry. When Tenley is hungry she will usually tell you but if you have to ask her it gets interesting. If you say “Tenley, are you hungry?” she will look at you like you are speaking greek. But if you say “Eat?” she will respond. Go figure!

So I looked at her and said “Eat?” and she responded “Okay!” She ate a bowl of potato cheese soup from Marie Callendars. When she was done she looked at me and said “Hicken” and then pointed at her fingers. I said “Chicken fingers?” and she again responded “Okay!”

Whenever you ask Tenley a question she takes it as an offer and responds affirmatively. So you always have to be careful with what you ask her as she may accept your offer and then complain bitterly if you don’t provide the agreed upon items or services.

Now tasked, by Tenley, with providing chicken fingers to eat and given the lack of said chicken fingers in the house, we piled into the car and headed to the nearest chicken finger emporium. Tenley likes the chicken from Carl’s Jr. so I went there. I was in the drive through line, ordering the chicken when all of a sudden from the back seat I hear “NO chicken fingers…yucky!” Too late, I had already ordered. I figured as soon as we got back home Ten would eat the chicken with no problem. Boy was I wrong!!!

We got back home and I cut up a few pieces of chicken and put them on one of Tenley’s little plates for her to eat. Eating the chicken was the furthest thing from her little mind. She took the plate and dumped the chicken on her Thomas train table and proceeded to mangle the chicken and spread it all over her train set. When I asked her what she was doing she replied “Chicken yucky.”

So once again I was duped into action by Tenley. The action I was performing was providing requested food for my child. The actual action that she got me to perform was giving her a ride in the car. I’m pretty sure if we could see into, and understand, Tenley’s little mind, it would have gone something like this…

Hmmmm, I’m bored. Maybe I’ll get that man to take me for a ride in the car.
I know, I’ll ask for food that we don’t have here. He’ll be excited because I might
want to eat something so he’ll do whatever I ask. That’s a good plan.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to planning on taking over the world!

Most people think of themselves as mommy and daddy. The kids just think of us as staff! Good thing she’s so cute.