My kids are excellent button pushers. They love pushing the buttons for elevators, though so far we’ve avoided having them push all of them while we’re in there, thankfully. The love pushing buttons on the microwave to the extent that they actually fight over whose turn it is to push “start”. 😛 And of course, they’re quite adept at pushing their mommy and daddy’s buttons to get them going on rants and the like.
That got me thinking. I need to create something to wear over my other clothes – an apron? a belt of some kind? – that has various buttons on it. When the kids say or do certain things, I can just instruct them to push the appropriate button (or I can push it if they can’t get to it). Here’s what a few of my buttons would say:
Button #1: “Settle down!”
This would mainly be used at bedtime, but there are other scattered times during the day when it would come into use, too.
Button #2: “Inside voices!” right next to Button #3: “Don’t run in the house!”
I’d probably have to install next to them Button #4: “Skip slower!” since that’s usually the way they try to get around the no running rule.
Button #5: “Bathing is not a spectator sport!”
This would mostly be used with the two year old, but the others need reminding sometimes, too. The two year old is just fascinated with water. The others usually just want to go in the bathroom and talk. (Girls!)
Button #6: “What just happened?”
This one would be used a lot. 😛
Button #7: “And you’re tattling.”
The “and” is in there because it’s usually in response to someone saying, “So-and-so did such-and-such.” Even Eli can tattle at times, though his consists of pointing at his sister and crying. 🙂
My 8th button will just play the “Have Patience” song. They’ll hate that button. *evil grin*
My buttons will probably change a bit as the kids grow, but those ones would definitely be useful right now. I’ll probably think of others, too. Oh, and we’re getting a puppy soon (yes, we’re crazy), so I may have some new ones to add then, both for the kids and for the dog. Maybe I can even train it to push its own buttons! I don’t know… would I then have a dog trained to the level of my kids, or would my kids be stuck at the level of a dog? Hmm.
1 response so far ↓
1 Wendy N // Mar 9, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Puppy! That’s it – you have to move back. You two obviously cannot be trusted out there in the wilds alone!!! I’ll be over with the boxes soon!