I scream you scream

Sometimes when you are two and a half, you have bad days. Ashton has been having a bad week, at least when it comes to sleeping. Naptime approached yesterday afternoon and the all-too-familiar protesting began. Desperate to avoid a standoff, I did what I always knew was not beneath me: I bribed him.

A little background. There's a new favorite book in our house called Steam Train, Dream Train. It was a gift recently, I really love it and so does Ashton. We read it a half a dozen times a day. One of the spreads looks like this:

It has spawned an ice cream obsession (Ashton has never really had it - most real ice cream has egg in it and besides maybe two soft-serves, it just has not been part of his life up until this point). So at naptime yesterday, when he was laying in his crib but threatening to cry, I said, "Do you want to go get ice cream? If you go to sleep, when you wake up we can go have some."

I'm shameless. I know. Parenthood can make suckers out of the best of us. But it worked!

At 4 pm, I walked into his room to rouse him. I honestly wondered if he would remember. I opened his shades and saw his eyelids start to flutter. He rolled over on his back and stared up at me from his crib. Before I even said anything, he whispered: "I want ice cream now."

That answered that. But I was happy to take him on his first real trip to the "ice cream store" and we set out for Rancatores in Belmont Center, where I knew they had great frozen yogurt (shhh!). He chattered on about his ice cream the entire way there.

"Ashton, what kind of ice cream are you going to get?"

"Blue."

"Okaaay, are you excited?"

"Yeah! I'm going to take my ice cream and I'm gonna drink it."

"Okaaay. Sure if that's what you want to do."

"I see it! I see my ice cream! Right here!" (and points to the local dog grooming salon as we pass it)

"Okaaay. Maybe there is ice cream in there but we are going to a better place."

"Yeah! Because it's my birthday."

Ummm...not sure what to say to that one.

So anyway, we get there, I pick him up and point to all the flavors in the cooler. "Which one do you want?" (turns out many were egg-free)

A very distressed reply. "Noooo! No I don't want dat!"

"You don't?"

"Nooo! I want ice cream! Where is it?"

I explained to him that it was ALL ice cream but he looked very confused, presumably because it was all in deep tubs and didn't look like it did in his book.

I ordered him vanilla. Toddlers often don't like things mixed together or "bits" in their food (at least mine doesn't) so I figured that was safe. Ashton saw the gummy bears in the jars of toppings and basically started to vibrate. I asked the scooper to add those as well.

Voila! The treat-de-resistance:

And the corresponding pictures (and who are we kidding, here is a video.)

 He kept saying, "I'm so happy!", "Mmmm! That's good!" "That's yummy, I like it!" and of course, "It's my birthday! Where are my cupcakes?" It's sad to tell your toddler it's not their birthday.

But the ice cream was such a novelty that he moved on quickly. "That's COLD!"

Alex slept through everything.

Ashton even gave me a couple bites (side note: gummy bears are like the worst topping ever. They just freeze and you can't taste them but have to chew them extra long). Anyway, it was a very fun, let's say, 8 minutes. We cleaned up and were about to get going when two little boys slightly older than Ashton sat down at the table next to us. 

Well. They had cones. With sprinkles. Ashton's happiness dissolved before my eyes. "I want dat! I want MORE!" And I kid you not, he actually walked back up to the counter, pointed at the cones and said "I want dat! I want dat!" with increasing agitation. Then he ran behind the register and I had to drag him out of there. I have a 50/50 chance that any given outing will end like that these days. 

I promised him the next time we had ice cream he could have a cone. And then we went and met up with Owen and they played at the "ice cream store" in the park.

So, all is well. At least I know what I have to do to make him go to sleep! I have a feeling there might be a lot more ice cream in our future...