How many times.

How many times I find myself saying “How many times”!

Pregnancy number 1 was filled with lots of pregnancy books, baby books, pregnancy and baby websites, child development books… the “do’s” and “don’ts” of parenting.

I remember, I think, that ‘good parenting’ was not to ask a child “how many times have I told you”. I guess it makes sense, I mean can a child really answer that question? And I think the point is that it confuses kids, I guess they forget about the thing that they are ‘not supposed to be doing’, and start to concentrate on ‘how many times’!

I am thinking of the reason I feel the need to bring “how many times” into the argument conversation, is because we just so fed up of saying the same thing over and over that we need to make a point by saying “how many times”. But the sad thing is that my 3 and a half year old does not really grasp the concept of “how many times”, and yesterday he actually tried to answer me! I asked him “how many times I told you not to do that?”, and he thought about it and answered “I don’t know”.

Of course nothing makes you madder when you’re arguing with kids than when they actual answer your rhetorical questions, but I just felt silly and had to laugh. What is the poor kid supposed to answer… it must be so confusing to them… and I bet that they think that we are arguing with them because they can’t remember “how many times”!

I overheard my eldest son trying to correct the middle one… “How many times you not supposed to do that!”