No means no...except when it means yes

My friends, you may not have heard, but today is opposite day! In fact, in G-man's world, everyday is opposite day. I'm starting to adjust to this change in the new world order, but there are times I forget and actually take what he says at face value. Silly mommy.

We're supposed to give preschoolers choices to help them feel more in control and independent. Seems logical. But someone forgot to mention wee ones like the G-man are not logical or rational themselves, so results may vary. A lot.

Large portions of my day are spent on THE DECISION, an event that is clearly rivaled only by the spectacle revealing Lebron's choice to not let the door out of Cleveland hit him in the ass. Getting G-man to commit to anything - milk or water? red or blue shirt? monkey or robot plate? - is almost impossible, and if a yes or no answer is required, only a true miracle will get a result. All mostly because he changes his mind in the middle of making up his mind.

Do you want some of your sandwich? No [as he takes a bite].

Should we go to the zoo or the park? Zoo [and then refuses to get out of the car because it's not the park].

Would you like an apple? Yes [never a nibble and touches it only to kick it under his bed].

He is the epitome of mary, mary, quite contrary. No matter what, he seems to say the opposite of what he wants and immediately loses control when we do what he says and not what he...well, I usually have no idea where he's going with his thought process sometimes.

Getting dressed in the morning is a chorus of, "Nooooooooo, I don't want that shirt! Not that one. Not that one. Not that one! THAT one. (sob, sob)" Guess what? He picks the original shirt. Breakfast starts with a request for mommy to make cocoa and quickly segues into a whirling dervish of how he wanted to make it, sometimes even before I've had the chance to get the damn can out of the cupboard in the first place. I've been told that the box car always goes behind the engine, unless of course, it doesn't and that little misstep will launch a chernobyl meltdown. And the classic dinnertime drink dance is always in play as the choice between juice, water, milk or brown milk takes at least 5 minutes and is already wrong by the time he climbs into his chair. Ah good times, good times.

So if I look doubtful when the G-man requests a red spoon, or agrees with his choice of pants or even says he has to go potty, I'd like to think I know what I'm doing. But I don't. And neither does he.