So, the "C" in "TBC" of my last post is still going to be happening - but first, a word from the wonderful world of Now. In which I have to confess that my Small Boy totally faked me out this week, and I have to brag about it.
It's no longer winter, so of course the entire household has chosen this moment in which to all get colds. In particular, the Small Boy was coughing up his lungs on a regular basis, and being dosed with cough syrup on a similar timeline.
He rather liked it. He began following me round the house saying. "Cough drink? Need a cough drink! I coughing!". And I would explain to him that you were only allowed to drink cough drink twice in the day - once in the morning and once after tea, and now we had to wait till after tea.
This pretty much held him for the first day.
The second day, clearly he had time for the wheels to turn inside his head - to interesting effect. On my third morning refusal of the "cough drink" he got very serious.
"Mamma. I go in bathroom. You stay outside." He backed slowly into the bathroom, watching me closely to ensure I didn't move, and closed the door carefully."
One minute. Two minutes. He came out. "Mamma, I drink a cough drink." Yeah right, I thought. I could clearly see the medicine cup on the sink, and the cupboard door, where the cough syrup was, still closed. He just got himself a drink of water in the medicine cup, I thought. That's fine by me.
Nope. When inspected, the cough syrup bottle was clearly open, and the medicine cup had cough syrup residue in it. Oops! The Small Boy was paying a lot more attention than I thought he was.
The really good part about all this (apart from the fact that cough syrup is actually not dangerous in large doses, and all the things that ARE dangerous in large doses are behind nice tight childproof caps) is the amount of forward planning and Theory of Mind implied in this little escapade. What does Mumma say? No cough drink till after tea. What will happen if I get myself cough drink? She will take it away. How do I stop that happening? Aha! Close the door and then she won't know!
It's not quite lying (an important Theory of Mind step) but it's a sort of proto-deception, familiar to me from the girls. The canonical exaple of this in our family is from the Taller Girl, aged 3:
"Take your finger out of your nose!"
"Mummy, look over there."
"Why?"
"So that I can put my finger in my nose!"
They get a lot better at it as they get older.
Anyway, it's a definite positive step in his mental development, and I'm immensely proud of him. Also, the cough syrup is SO going on the top shelf now.
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