Mom, What's that sound?

This is Jasmine's favorite question these days. Her eyes get big and out comes the question and I patiently try to answer all her sound questions. If she would have asked me that question last night at around 8:45 PM I would have told her that sound was Mommy's disbelief at falling for the oldest trick in the book. The problem was that since my child is only 2 years old, I wasn't expecting to have to look out for it until she was at least 4 years old.

Let me paint the picture for you. Jasmine was having a late dinner because she has not been feeling well and she had woken up late in the morning which started the whole day being behind schedule. She didn't get dinner until around 8 PM. Lately, Jasmine has been taking a very long tine to eat and I simply cannot sit there for 45 minutes and watch her eat. I have started doing other chores while she eats and last night was no exception. I told her when she sat down that if she ate all of her food I would give her an icy pole (freezer pop). She got very excited. I need to preface this by saying that I never make child eat everything on her plate if she doesn't want it but she has to at least give it a good showing. I figured though as she was eating one of her favorite meals and she hadn't eaten lunch (she didn't want to) that she would be hungry and this would not be a problem. I checked on her periodically and she was very slow going so I kept reminding her. I told her she had to eat the hot dog and the cheese (she had already polished off the green beans) before dessert. She called to me after sitting there for 40 minutes and declared she was All Done! I looked at the empty plate and cheered for her and clapped my hands. I gave her a red freezer pop and continued finishing the task I was doing. 5 minutes later, she called to me to please come and wipe up some milk she spilled and I noticed she was done with her dessert and that somehow mysteriously, there were hot dog pieces and cheese pieces back on her plate. I took a quick scan and realized I had been had. She had taken the hot dog pieces and cheese pieces and put them in the side mesh pocket of her chair and when she was done with her dessert, she took them back out.

Needless to say I was not happy, but I didn't lose control. I told her she would sit there until every piece of hot dog and every piece of cheese was eaten. She sat there until almost 10 PM but she finally finished. I felt terrible, guilty and sad but I had to let her know that it was wrong what she did and let her know that would not fly with me.

I simply cannot believe how clever she was and it is a bit scary that she is thinking in such an advanced fashion at such a young age. I better keep on my toes because who knows what other things I will be tricked on!