I spent the weekend negotiating with a 2-year-old. It did not go well.
OK, it didn't go disastrously. I mean, both of us exited the experience with no trips to the emergency room, which I tend to set as a baseline of success. And if there was any long-term scarring, well, I'm sure I'll get over it. Eventually. After some therapy.
It's not like this was my first rodeo trying to get to a solution with someone whose total vocabulary consists of about 25 actual words and lots and lots of ... versions of words. It's also not the first time I've tried to negotiate with someone who didn't appear to be speaking the same language as me. But enough about my attempts to buy a car. Or a house.
As I said, I've had to try to agree to terms with 2-year-olds before, but there were a few key differences. The biggest, obviously, was that these were in fact my offspring, and parents the world over reserve the right to play the "because I said so" card. I mean, it's hard to argue with that. Successfully, anyway. Particularly, again, if you only have a 25-word vocabulary that doesn't include the phrases "legal representation" or "due process."
But this time around I was negotiating with one of my granddaughters. Very different ballgame. As I told the Lovely Mrs. Smith, it's sort of like if you scratch your car's paint; well, things like that happen. But if you borrow someone else's car and scratch it, you likely have a slightly less laissez-faire attitude.
Also, one of my prime negotiating tools is gone when it comes to the grandkids. With my children I could always say, "Well, we can settle this right now or I can get your mom involved. Which do you prefer?" You'd be amazed at how quickly laundry gets done or toys picked up when you throw that out there.
With our grandchildren, no such luck. If there is a bigger pushover than me, it's her. "Getting your grandmother involved" would likely result in a double scoop of ice cream for the child and a death stare (at least) for the grandfather.
A note, certainly not specific to anything that happened over the weekend (so the child's parents can just calm down already!): You can spend some time preparing a delicious and nutritious meal composed of what, up until the very moment of serving, were all of a 2-year-old's favorite foods and the odds are still very good they'll turn their nose up at it, at best, and, at worst, levitate like something from "The Exorcist."
But they find a dead bug in the yard and suddenly it's snack time. Children have an amazing capability to (A) find things that should never, ever under any circumstances go in their mouths and (B) put them there. Apparently the very human tendency to do dumb things just because we can starts early in life and stays late.
Anyway, back to the negotiating (another sure-fire negotiating technique: bounce wildly off-topic in an effort to distract the person you're negotiating with. Usually works, except, of course, with a 2-year-old, who has about a 15-second attention span).
Pretty early in the weekend I realized that none of my best negotiating techniques were, in fact, going to work. So, armed with the knowledge that I was effectively unarmed, I set about trying to cajole an toddler into doing at least the bare minimum civilized behavior would entail.
The problem is, negotiating works best when both sides agree that we need to think on a long-term basis. But toddlers tend to live very much in the "now." As in, "I want to read this book NOW." Or "I want a cookie NOW." Or "I don't want to quit playing and instead sit quietly and eat my food in a tidy fashion NOW. Or likely EVER."
It's also best to enter negotiations knowing you're prepared to walk away. Except, in these, I can't, and if she does, she has a funny little sort of walk/sort of skip thing, and her pony tail bounces in a really cute way and she also tends to sing the "Happy Birthday Song" for no reason but very loudly, and ah, what the heck. One more cartoon and then ice cream probably won't hurt anyone.
So I've discovered the secret to negotiating with a 2-year-old. Give in relentlessly, enjoy it while you can and let the parents repair all the damage. As far as I'm concerned, definitely a "win-win."