The Negotiator

Sprout impressed me the other day. Okay, he impresses me every day, but this was stellar.

It was Saturday morning, and we went shopping for second-hand clothing for a while. At some point I said, "Sprout, are you hungry? Should we go to the mall and have a muffin?" "Yeh," he said, and off we went.

Getting to the mall was easy - getting through the mall was harder. This particular shopping centre has recently doubled the number of small fibreglass rides for children - they're everywhere! I never have money to put in the rides, but Sprout is happy just to climb on them. So he sat in the rocket ship, he sat with Kermit in the purple car, he sat with the chipmunk in the red car, and over 20 minutes we inched our way to the muffin shop.

To my dismay, when I thought it was all over and the coast was clear, the mall has added a room with 3 rides in it for kids - the Bob the Builder bulldozer, the tiny carousel, and the spider man helicopter. Of course, we had to stop. My son loves big machines (diggers/earth movers/scoops). He ran from ride to ride for another 10 minutes, being very busy and serious as children are. And I was starving.

Me: "[Sprout], can we go and get a muffin now?"
Him: "I just need to go on dat big machine for a little bit."
Me: "Okay. After you're done that ride, I would like to go and get a muffin please."
[loop this conversation about 3 times]
Me: "I'm getting really hungry. Can we please go and get a muffin?"
Sprout: [This is the impressive part] "How about, can we go and get a muffin and bring it back and eat it on da big machine?"
Me: "Yes! Yes, we can! That's an excellent suggestion."

And so we did. I was so proud. If he can problem-solve like that at two, imagine the future possibilities.