in a difficult position

Dominique put me in a bit of a difficult predicament tonight. She was saying a rambling prayer of thank-yous for nearly everything under the sun. She ended with "thank you God for letting us go to Chuck-E-Cheeses", opened her eyes, looked at me and said "mom, can we go to Chuck-E-Cheeses?"

Emora is getting to be a handful at swimming lessons. They are not for her and she is not at all happy about it. We did take her swimming Sun. and she loved it. So she kept trying to get in the pool with Ivan and Dominique for their lesson today. Even with me right there, she got close on several occasions and exasperated at me, threw her snack container in at one point. She has no fear. At the playground, she wanted to hang from her legs over a bar like Dominique, tried to walk off a 3 foot high landing while reaching for a fireman pole and discovered the joys of slides. I'd put her on and she'd wiggle to get going, then wizz down with me trying to make sure she didn't summersault her way down.

Ivan has troubles finding his gumption to try/start or continue a task, so I use a lot of bribery or competition with him as motivation. Tonight he didn't want to read, so I offered him an incentive and he read nearly every word in an easy to read book by himself. Then he was so thrilled with the fact that he had done it, that he grabbed another book and read it too. Yipee- just let him taste success and away we go. Or so I hope.