Mom's favorite quote from the week in Maine:

"I'm exhausted! This is harder than teaching college. There's always something happening."
-Opie, on sharing primary caretaker responsibilities with Mom for two days

Strange event from earlier this morning:

Mama and Papi silently marveled as Aenaon scored a passing grade on the Global Safari quiz all by himself. He began to press the buttons, and rather consistently answered the questions correctly. For example: "Cedar Rapids is a city in...California, Connecticut, Iowa, Montana"- and he pressed the number three for the correct answer, and pressed "go" to proceed. He did this for close to ten minutes, to our amazement, and got more than half of the answers correct. Hmmmm....

that was drafted on 7/15

Anyway, for those of you who think you can't bargain with a two year old-- there is nothing further from the truth. That is the M.O. of our daily routine. The main point is that the action and consequence need to be immediately apparent. It cannot be spatially or temporally removed. Half of the time that is how I get Aenaon dressed, etc. 'If you want me to read x,' 'if you want to listen to the iPod', you need to put on your clothes first. I take advantage whenever I see there's something he wants, if he is resisting what I need him to do. Or today, "if you want some pineapple, give Adara back the plane you took away", plane is immediately returned. I could elaborate on this, but I'm too tired.

Peace.