Baby Steps

So, I had a little success today that I wanted to share with all of you.  Remember how yesterday I said I got tired of hearing myself tell Aggie "no"?  Well, today it dawned on me that instead of telling her what I didn't want her to do, I could tell her what I wanted her to do.  For example, when she started crawling in the bathroom, I said "please come back out to the living room to play or let's go into your room; the bathroom isn't a place to play."  And it worked (for the most part).  Duh - her little baby brain can't come up with alternatives to what she wants to do, it's so focused on the present.  I am very proud of myself for figuring this out and it felt a lot better to do, even when she didn't listen so well, because I didn't feel ignored or like a broken record.

For those of you sans children (and with, even), I think this can also apply to how we treat ourselves - instead of focusing on what we don't want to do ("Don't eat that brownie!"), we could focus on what we want ourselves to do ("Let's eat an apple.").  My examples are trite, but I think the main message has significance.