A very tired Harriet: It�s time to take your bath, AJ.

AJ: No! Not yet!

Harriet: Yes, right now.

AJ: I want to play.

Harriet: You can play in your bathtub.

AJ: I can�t!

Harriet: Please stop arguing with me.

AJ: I�m not arguing with you!

Harriet: Yes, you are.

AJ: No, I�m not!

Harriet: Yes, you are.

AJ: I�m not!

(scene mercifully fades out)

� � � � �

I am getting very tired of the word �no.� It is all I hear from AJ from sunup (for that is when he gets up) to sundown (or shortly before, when he goes to bed). He argues with every statement, from the ridiculous (�The dishwasher cannot play CDs.�) to the benign (�Your milk is in the refrigerator.�).

The knee-jerk reaction to such behavior is to wrestle with it until AJ listens and obeys. But although that would make things better for me in the short term, I�m not sure it�s going to be better for him in the long run. Although I need to know that he�ll listen to me when it counts � he�s taken to ignoring warnings and running into traffic of late � I don�t want to be training him to be someone who follows instructions without thinking about them.

I realize, in fact, that I am confronting myself. I have always wrestled with things in just this way, refusing to take even the most basic elements of my life at face value. I know that I made my mother very tired in the same way AJ makes me tired. When I have time to regroup at the end of the day, I know that I want him to be able to make the decisions in his life of which he is capable. But in the heat of conflict, I am less willing to budge an inch, even when I know I am, more often than not, putting my foot down in reaction to AJ and not due to any deeply held belief on the way things need to be.

I will, however, get a small break from the very bad cycle we've gotten into today. I am heading to the archive bright and early tomorrow with high expectations of what I will find. After I get back, we�re planning to take in a minor league ball game with AJ, an event during which, I hope, there will be more yeses on all sides. And also ice cream and beer (for one of us, anyway).

[Second post today, probably in lieu of one tomorrow. Click back if you�re dying to delve into the Good Housekeeping horror that is my desk.]

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