Share and Share Alike

A couple of months ago, our church offered an Incredible Years class. I held on to the brochure for a couple of weeks, pondering whether or not to commit myself and my family to 8 weeks of anything. When I finally decided, "why not", and called the church office to sign up:

"Pastor B. has just informed us that the class is completely full," the church secretary told me.

For some reason, even after my indecision on even joining the class in the first place, this was a disappointment to me.

So when an e-mail was circulated among our MOPS group that another class was being offered, I am pretty sure I was the first to sign up.

Last night was the first chapter in what may prove to be a waste of 16 hours of our entire lives, not to mention, a delay on all of the other important things we have to do on Thursday nights, such as watch Survivor.

I'm being a little dramatic, if you couldn't tell.

After picking up the kids from Angie's, I barely had time to feed them, so we ordered happy meals in the drive-thru at McDonald's and parked the van in the parking lot for some fancy, gourmet dining. Ketchup packets optional.

Since I'm trying a new "diet", (I'll fill you in later.) I gave them their McNuggets and McFries, and sat back to observe.

Malachi, it turns out, is a "Soaker". He dunks his nuggets in his Sweet and Sour Sauce for no less than 15 minutes, then proceeds to bite off only the portion of the "chicken" that has been drowned in high fructose corn syrup. (It is no wonder we're going to have to sell all of our earthly belongings to pay for the work that is needed to fix his teeth.)

Madison couldn't care less whether or not she gets a Nickelodeon Slime Sprayer in her happy meal. She'd rather dabble in the finer, more mature things in life, like the Snack Wrap. *Sigh* Gone are the days of cheap Barbie and Polly Pocket wannabes. My little girl has grown up.

And Mathias, well he's the "Hoarder". He sat in his car seat, pulled all of his food as close to himself as he could, stuffed as much of it into his mouth as he could, and said, (as far as I can tell) "Mine".

He knows his Mommy well.

My name is Rachel and I am a closet fry stealer.

That's right, you heard it first here. No one's fries are safe around me (well, unless you happen to be a non-member of my family...because that's just wierd.)

So I decided, in the best interest of my son (and my growling stomach) to give Mat a lesson in sharing.

It started out like any other lesson we give Mat on a regular basis, whether it be signing the word "please" or throwing away a kleenex: One of the older kids would demonstrate, in this case giving me a bite of their snack wrap, or a sauce-drenched french fry, and then be lavishly praised and/or rewarded. Simple. Works every time.

Just not this time.

Mathias defiantly looked at me and said, clear 19 month old dialect, "Uh Uh."

This went on for 5 minutes before Madison, Malachi and I gave up for the night.

Does anyone have any easy tips to teach toddlers the art of sharing? If so, I'm all ears.

We finished eating, cleaned up as best we could using only baby wipes, and headed to our class.

After a half hour of introductions and another half hour of the class syllabus, we had the joy of watching several video segments of parents at play with their children. They showed a couple of examples not to follow, and then some examples to follow.

The fact that the videos were filmed sometime in the early eighties, combined with the cheesy acting, was enough to put me to sleep.

I have to admit though, that I for one am in need of some encouragement and accountability when it comes to playing with my children. I'm not talking play as in, "Let's see who can pick up their room the fastest" or "You want to play Operation? Let Mommy show you how it's done", but actual, one-on-one, child led play. But let's be honest, as a busy mommy of three, there are enough other things that demand my time to be concerned with dressing up as Snow White and racing Matchbox cars across the coffee table.

But I realize the error of my ways and am committing myself to child-led play this week. Even if my feet are ten times bigger than Snow White's.

I'll let you know how it goes.