Over the weekend I spent some time with my 4 year old niece. She likes for me to play with toys with her. It's kind of boring to do it her way, so I do it my way. When her baby doll was sick and needed to go to the hospital, instead of just going along with it, I told her that she needed to bring a check for the copay at the hospital. This seemed reasonable to her, so she went to Grandma's office and tried to get a check. My brother stopped her. Then there was some screaming and crying and stuff.

I thought that she would just pretend to have a check for the doctor. Well, someone drew a fake check for her on a piece of paper and then she was happy.

Then it was dinnertime and she wasn't hungry. Finally, her mom told her that if she didn't eat her dinner, she wouldn't get any chocolate pie for dessert. All of a sudden, she was hungry! This I don't quite understand. If a child refuses to eat, we should threaten not to feed them in the future? What's really sad is that they usually fall for it. I'm watching and learning.