Good Manners Will Only Get You So Far

I was playing with Anson a couple of days after he was hangin' with Pops (thanks, again, Pops!). We were sitting on the floor, playing with the shape sorter. Anson picked up the blue circle, and got quite excited.

Anson: "Da! Da!"
Mama: "Yes, that's a blue circle."

Apparently, Anson was well aware that he was holding onto a blue circle, and Mama was being rather dumb. He gave me a LOOK. He continued to get more excited, and I thought he wanted me to play with the shape sorter. I assisted (forced) his hand into putting the circle into the appropriate cut-out in the box. Was THAT a mistake! Anson very grumpily pulled the circle out of the shape sorter, and I could almost see him grumbling to himself about his stupid Mama. He physically opened the fingers of my hand, and thrust the blue circle into my palm.

Anson: "Da! Da!"

Hmm. Not sure what to do, I started to put the blue circle into the shape shorter myself. Again, not what he wanted. He made this clear by starting to cry.

Mama: "I'm sorry, Anson, I don't know what you want me to do!"

At this point, I realized that there was a particular game that Anson wanted to play. Most likely a game that he was playing with Pops, as neither Joe nor I knew the rules.

Anson continued to fuss, Mama continued to be sorry.

Finally, Anson pulled out the thing that, more often than not, gets him what he wants. "Peeese?" he asked quite pathetically.

Oh, Punkin'...