The Power Of "Pwez"

S here writing today for this blog.

What a fun day we had today. We went to the zoo and let me tell you, the day to go is when it is unexpectedly snowing and it is about 5 degrees outside because there are only about 10 other families brave (desperate) enough to go. An empty zoo meant the boys had the run of the place and we saw owls up close and fish and they even got to walk the tropics trail, instead of taking it in via their stroller as is custom.

After naps, I had been promising the boys that I would string some lights out on our deck for them to see, but when I started doing so today, it was so cold that the bulbs were shattering and the old lights I had were burning out while I was stringing them. As a result, we decided to split up and have a rare one on one time with the boys. I took M out to the store and Mom and N got to bake cookies. I let M pick out the lights by showing him the choices and the asking him to point to the ones he wanted, multi-color or white. He inspected them and then pointed and pat the multi-color lights. We even discussed the colors, with him pointing out the "geeen" and "bew" lights.

M's vocabulary grows by the day and recently we taught him please, which he speaks as "pwez" in his sing song voice. He is starting to get it and will say "pwez" for food or when he wants his "Binky". At the store, I put him in a cart so we could find our items we wanted and then I got a dual lesson, one on marketing and one on persuasion. Strategically placed near the carts/check-out area are these really cool model cars that you pull back and then watch zoom across the room, the doors even open and close. My little guy must have learned a thing or two from those owls, because his excellent eye saw those cars and I had an instant cacophony of requests for "cah, cah, cah, cah". So I handed him one of the cars so that he could check it out while we shopped. We try to speak to the boys like regular people and I told him that we were not going to buy the car, so he was warned.  Having our items, we went back and returned the car and started checking-out and M immediately began reminding me that there were really cool "cahs" and he wanted one. He finally paused, looked at me and then the cars and changed tactics, "pwez... pwez... pwez... pwez..." he said with pleading eyes pointing to the cahs. I smiled and hugged him and reminded him that he had dozens of cars back home. I didn't give in, but that face and that voice is going to get him far in life, probably with the grandparents!