Great metaphor, Jan. Now in my defense, I must clarify that Joaquin has always brushed his teeth while playing with hangers right before his nap, but that particular day he was not willing to multi-task. Guess he wanted full concentration like I do when I code.

Your tip is great. Last summer I used some version of it to end play time with the garden hose. “Joaquin, I’ll count to 10 and then you’ll be done playing with the hose”. By the time I said 10 he would let go of it without any fuss.

Thank you for the reminder, and for stopping by. Hope all is going well for you…

Let’s say you’re in the middle of writing HTML for a client. You promised your husband yesterday you’d help him clean out the garage.

He walks in and demands you help him NOW. How willing are you to drop whatever you’re doing and run out to do what you had promised? And if you do, how happy are you going to be about it?

You want to at least wrap up what you’re doing at that moment, right? Why would a 2 year old be different?

What worked really well with my son is when we started giving him a time-frame and a chance to wrap up whatever he was involved in.

“5 minutes until brushing time” – followed by “2 minutes until teeth brushing” and a “30 seconds and we start our teeth brushing” warning will do miracles.

It’ll give him a chance to mentally prepare for what’s coming and finish whatever he was involved in.

Remember, 2 year old boys eventually turn into 15 year old teenagers :)