Irrational toddlers

Sometimes, you just can't rationalize with a toddler.

And sometimes, their tantrums are downright funny. This evening, as I look back upon what I now affectionately call "The parmesan cheese tantrum", I do think it's mildly amusing. Perhaps you will find it humorous as well.

I made pasta for dinner tonight...American chop-suey, to be exact. Amy loves parmesan cheese piled on her pasta, and it's usually difficult to even see the spaghetti hiding behind the mounds of cheese on her plate. So tonight, as I set the table for dinner, I had a moment of panic when I realized that there was no parmesan cheese in the refrigerator. I called Amy into the kitchen and prepared myself for the explosion.

"Amy", I calmly said, "There's no more parmesan cheese. We won't be able to put any on your pasta tonight".

She stared at me in disbelief. Then the tears started flowing. She pulled and tugged on the heavy refrigerator door, while shouting "Show me! Show me!"

I opened the door for her, and pointed to the open shelf on the door...the one where we usually keep the parmesan cheese.

"No!! No!!", she screamed. "Show me where the parmesan cheese isn't! I want to see where there is no parmesan cheese!"

What a difficult request. I wasn't quite sure how to handle this one, but I started moving cartons of milk, potatoes, jars of pickles, yougurt containers, and pointing out everywhere that the cheese was not. But somehow this did not quite cut it. She continued to yell, "NO! You're not showing me where there's no parmesan cheese! I HAVE TO SEE where there's no cheese! Show where the cheese is not!"

After a few moments of attempting to reason through this argument (all the while paying precious pennies to the electric company for the open refrigerator door), I firmly shut the door and ended the discussion. Amy proceeded to throw herself on the floor and wail "There is cheese in there. You NEVER showed me that there wasn't!

In the end, after a very long, drawn-out tantrum, she ate the pasta plain. And now, I sit here and laugh at my attempts to reason with a three-year-old. My advice to you: Don't even try to win this type of argument. Even Plato probably couldn't argue with a toddler.