My Two-Year-Old’s a Capitalist

I recently started an incentive program for my daughter, Belle, who’s two. Basically, if she doesn’t push over her baby brother, Johnny, and stomp on his face, she gets an M&M. (Hey, we shoot for small victories during the “terrible twos.")

So I explain the ground rules and she says, “I’m all about that, Daddy. I’m a good girl.” Take that, Karl Marx!

Play-Dohn't
Before the incentive program, she asks: “Daddy, may I have Play-Doh?” You should know that giving Play-Doh to Belle before dinner is like giving Robert Downey, Jr. a bag of crack and sending him to LaGuardia Airport—bad things will happen.

I counter: “Will you stop playing and eat dinner when Mommy says it’s time?”

“No, Daddy,” she says. And Marx didn't think capitalists were honest!

Wax On, Wax Off
Before M&Ms were at play, Belle operated on the assumption it was easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. We’re working on that, too, with a system that lands her in "timeout" if her poor behavior lasts to a count of “1, 2, 3.”

The key, psychologists tell us, is to remain calm no matter what she’s doing, because she’s misbehaving precisely to garner attention. Yeah, well, I'd like to see the psychologist remain calm when his daughter dips the clean rags in the dirty puddles in the driveway and proclaims, “Hey daddy, I helping wax the car!”

Waxing Poetic
Don’t get me wrong. This week, Belle and I flew her first kite and washed the car together for the first time. It isn’t always easy to slow down long enough to devote time to these types of activities but, when you do, it helps you to return to your own childhood. Plus you get to see that “I did it, Daddy!” look. I remember the expression on my dad’s face when I squirted him with the hose and when my kite finally sailed into the air. Now, I see it in reverse. It’s something a good friend of mine, author and cartoonist Jason Kotecki, calls “escaping adulthood” and freeing yourself from a disease he calls "Adultitis."

But just when your heart slows down a beat, your daughter tries to use your son as a squeegee.

So I count, “One… two…,” which triggers kids to ask the strangest things to change the subject. Belle asks: “Hey Daddy, what are those?”

“What are what?” I ask.

“Those,” she says, pointing to me.

“My chest?”

“No—those.”

“My nipples?”

“Yes!” she says, nodding. “Belle touch them…”

“No, thanks, Belle,” I say, “I’m good.”

Maybe we’ll stick to M&Ms.