Winning the Contest

Yesterday at church was apparently a contest of wills between Isaac and me. He was acting up and causing a disturbance in sacrament meeting and I took him outside. Eventually he won his way back in only to have Laura take him out a few minutes later after renewed disturbance. Laura came back in a few minutes later sans Isaac and informed me that Isaac only wanted me. I went outside to where he was sitting and talked to him. He wanted to go home and take a nap. As we talked I explained to him that he was tired because he had been struggling with me in a struggle that he could not win. I told him that I did not want to take him home but that I would be happy to let him take a nap in my arms. Due to his continued sobbing I finally asked if he would be willing to take a short nap at home and come back in time for the last hour of church. He agreed to that and I collected Enoch (so that Laura would not have to take care of the baby while teaching her Sunday School class) and left as sacrament meeting was drawing to a close.

As soon as we got home and closed the garage door Isaac announced that: “I won the contest.” I asked him what contest he was talking about and he told me he won the contest with me about us going home.

Not to be outdone I decided to turn the tables on Isaac. (Yes, that’s dad, competing with his three year old in mind games.) I asked Isaac if the whole idea was to win the contest. He said that it was and so I asked if we could go back to church now that he had won the contest. He agreed. I quickly took the opportunity to put in my contacts (that I had forgotten before church) and then we went back to church before the chapel had even cleared from the meeting.

As we parked Isaac said that he wanted to go home and take a nap. I reminded him that he had already won the contest and had agreed to come back because of that so he went in and I took him to primary. I was feeling pretty proud of myself – I figured that I had won the contest after all – although I would not say such a thing to Isaac. Later I saw Laura in the hall between meetings and I explained how we had been able to come back to church so quickly because of Isaac winning the contest. After we got home from church Isaac announced to Laura that: “Dad won the contest.”

Apparently he recognized that he had been outmaneuvered even without me rubbing it in.