Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A puzzle for Nolan

So a few months ago, when Nolan began throwing his cup on the floor during mealtimes for no apparent reason other than he was done taking a sip of milk, Brian and I taught him to "put it away" after each sip. Meaning the cup should go in the highchair tray's cup holder. When he did it right, he got applause. When he threw his cup, we ignored him. We were so proud when it worked and we thought, "hmm, this positive reinforcement thing really does work." Well, a couple days ago, he was drinking milk with dinner and he started saying, "Juice, Juice Juicejuicejuicejuice!" You get the idea. I look behind me and see there's his other sippy cup of juice on the counter. So, I weighed my options and rather than refusing and having him pitch a fit and not finish dinner, I gave him the juice. Now he had two sippy cups. And only one cup holder. This posed quite the puzzle for my little guy. I, of course, took some pictures of the events...its so fun to watch how his mind works!
Here are the two cups, set on the tray. Which one will win the prize of cupholder? Nolan is literally pointing out the fact that there seems to be a problem here.
Okay, we'll try the milk in the holder. After all, the milk WAS here first:

Now what? Let's try it again:Well, now what? There's still one NOT PUT AWAY!!! It's so annoying Momma!

There's really only one thing left I CAN do:

2 comments:

Mom Mc said...

Doesn't it just amaze you how they figure all of this out at such a young age.

Chris said...

Hey Sam,

It's Chris, Liz's husband. We had a great albeit quick get together with Brian last week. I hope he enjoyed his trip to DC. We told him next time he has to bring you guys. When he's working, you can see the sights!! Liz has the pictures downloaded but has been swamped at work and is behind in her editing. We'll send them soon. Nolan is a cute little guy. Aren't they fun???