Kids do not think rationally.

I've been thinking about something since yesterday. I realized that I can't always expect to be able to talk my kids into making the mature choice. It's something I probably already knew, but I just need to remember that a little more often.

We had gone outside for a walk. Heidi was in the double stroller and Kevin had opted to walk. We walked around Baity Hill and then Kevin wanted to walk up to the business school and go down the elevator. (We have elevators in all the buildings here, but I guess there's something special about that one, rickety as it is.) I showed him the fountains, which he thought were pretty wonderful, and then we walked under the flags (always very exciting to Kevin), and then we went down the elevator and then back up again. We had a really nice time.

On the way back, Kevin was moving a lot more slowly because he was tired. He hadn't taken a nap that day, either. He kept getting distracted and it was taking forever to get home. I knew that we were both hungry and that things would go a lot faster if I could just convince him to get into the stroller. But I didn't want to deal with the battle that is often involved in getting him in the stroller when he wants to be out exploring. So I procrastinated it and I tried to convince him to decide to get into the stroller by asking him every thirty seconds if he wanted to get in the stroller.

Then I realized something. Two-year-olds are not very rational. He was exhausted and wanted to ride in the stroller, but he was having a hard time making the mature choice because he was also so interested in everything around him. I had to be the one to just make the choice to put him in the stroller, because he wasn't going to do it himself. So I did, and lo and behold, he didn't even put up a fuss. It was what he had really wanted all along, but he was too distracted to make the reasonable choice.

So that's where I come in. And that's one of the challenges of motherhood. I've had to learn that even though he's yelling and screaming that he doesn't want to go to bed, sometimes I have to just put him in bed anyway because he's tired and he's not going to make that choice himself. I've had to learn that even though I'm dragging him kicking and flailing from the playground, I can't take it personally because he can't choose to go in to dinner when he's having fun at the playground. You can't expect a child to think like an adult. You can't always attempt to reason with them and convince them to make the right choice on their own. So a lot of the time I just have to make the call without expecting that my kids will see things logically--in fact, it's to be expected that a lot of the time they'll object. And I have to do it anyway.

That is one of the most exhausting parts of being a mother.