9.27.11

Family night is seriously one of my favorite nights.  I think it's the teacher in me.  I just love thinking about a topic and preparing a little lesson complete with games and activities and worksheets.  I even just bought the nursery manual so am now using that, which everything so much easier and helps me better adjust my lessons to Rex's level--something I've always struggled with as a teacher--teaching too high for my students.

Greg had to work late last night so we did family night tonight.  We learned about sharing because hopeful very soon Rex will have to share a lot of things with his new baby sister--again assuming she every decides to show up.  (Here's the link to the lesson on the Church's website). I brought a bunch of toys to family night and we all got to pick a toy to share with someone else and practiced saying "I will share."  Then we looked at pictures of kids sharing and talked about how happy they looked with they shared.  Then we sang a song about sharing.  Then we rolled a dice with different things to share on it and practiced sharing the item that we rolled.  Then we sang our sharing song again and passed our toys around in a circles while we sang.  Then we colored.  Daddy and I shared one page and Rex colored his own.

And here's where the lesson fell apart.

Most of our crayons lack a pointy tip, making coloring with them very difficult, but we do have colored pencils that are still semi sharp.  When I opened the crayon box, Rex quickly gathered up all the colored pencils and put them just out of Daddy's reach.  Daddy asked Rex if he would share any of his pencils.

Rex, "No."

Mommy, "But Rex, remember the little kids in the pictures?  Sharing is fun.  It makes us happy."

Rex, "No."

Daddy, "Rex, you aren't even using that one.  Can I use it? Share, please."

Rex, "No."

And so it went for quite some time.  Greg ended up having to color his little boy green and orange because those were the only sharp crayons left.

By the end of the evening, Rex did concede to share his scissors with Daddy.  The two of them actually took turns quite nicely.

But sometimes I those two act more like siblings than parent-child.