No, I'm Not Done Yet, M-a-n-i-p-u-l-a-t-i-o-n, Part 3

Evidently cavemen were good manipulators or we wouldn't be here. Thank God for birth control.

And thoughts of birth control bring me back to my own little family. (Kind of like If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.)

Isaac is refining his skills as a child manipulator. As a baby we were all wrapped around all ten of his cute pudgy little fingers. We've wisened up to his ways. Unfortunately he's still stinkin' cute so we all fold at some point. Even Maya and Eva. His time will come though. He's going to have to step up his game if he wants to play in this family.

And while Maya also has great skills in this area her technique is different. Or I should say similar because I know it so well. Her skills definitely fall from my side of the gene pool. She starts with the sad eyes and moves her way into guilting you and ultimately dings you with a touch of "then you're really not that great of a mom are you?" or "you're failing me as a parent". Not literally, she's much too good for that. While she may leave me feeling like a failure there is a bit of reassurance in knowing she'll hopefully use this skill out there in the real world.

Eva is like Tim. She can drag on a discussion until I'm wondering what my name is. Eva will go to great lengths to figure out how to get out of doing anything physical. She is gifted at getting people to do things for her. Last week she must have been a little too tired when she tried this one:

Tim told Eva the other morning that she needed to drink some water since they had just gone for a swim so that she wouldn't get dehydrated. Eva was standing in the kitchen at the time. She looked up at me and asked "Do you have any of that in here?" Not unlike your husband asking where you keep the ice. I told her as far as I knew it was still coming out of the faucet. I refrained from saying "you know that silver thing in the middle of the sink where I was just standing washing the dishes with the waahh-terrrrr."