Be Nice to Me

Lincoln has never really been one to use his words. Its a tough thing to do when you don't really have words to use. While he is speaking much better these days we are slowly working on using words for things like, "Hungry," or "Shoes off." Using words to communicate more than basic needs rarely happens with him.

So today we were at McDonald's. Every time I take him there I swear we are never going again, but its been cold and rainy here and I really just needed to go somewhere that he could burn off some energy without destroying my house. So McDonald's it was. He did great. No hitting, pushing, fits, biting, or anything. There was this one little boy there that looked to be newly two, but was huge. He was almost as big as Lincoln, but still had the toddler walk and the toddler look if you know what I mean. This kid seemed a lot like the old Lincoln. He kept running kids over left and right, even kids that were much bigger than him. A few minutes later this kid decided that Lincoln was his "buddy." He followed Lincoln around pushing him. First Lincoln tried running away from him, but there wasn't really much room to run in a packed play place. So then he tried climbing, but the kid climbed too. Then he tried hiding in the corner. That's when the kid started throwing punches. So Lincoln finally turned around and punched the kid. So that's when I stepped in. I told the kid to stop being mean (really though, I had to wonder why his own mom hadn't said anything as this had been going on for a good five minutes) and told Lincoln that we don't hit we use our words. I told him to say, "Be nice to me," or "don't push." I didn't think that it would actually work. The kid left him alone for a few minutes, but the next time he came back and started pushing Lincoln again Lincoln yelled, "BE NICE TO ME!"

I seriously wanted to start cheering in McDonald's! It seems like such a small thing, but Lincoln used his words to defend himself. And even more surprising, the kid left him alone after that. Overall, a very successful afternoon at McDonald's.