Saturday, January 20, 2007

Negotiations

Sophia has become quite the little negotiator lately. After lunch today she asked if she could watch TV and I said no because she had already watched some this morning. She started screaming and crying and then came back a minute later and said, "I know. How about instead of watching TV, I watch Ice Age: The Meltdown." When I said no to that she began screaming and crying again. I let her cry for a couple minutes while I finished cleaning up and then said, "Sophia, do you ever get things you want by screaming and crying?" She immediately stopped crying, laughed and said, "actually, no!" I couldn't help but laugh at that. Then I asked her why this time would be different and she said, "but I wanted it to be different this time!" I couldn't believe her.

She must be learning her negotiating tricks from Ben. We went to Hom Furniture yesterday to buy a much needed comfortable couch. We found a couch we liked a lot and while Sophia, Caleb and I enjoyed some free fresh-baked cookies in the kids' play area, Ben talked to the salesman. He ended up getting the guy to take 38% off the price it was marked. His technique was much different than Sophia's. He mostly stood there without saying much - just throwing in an occasional, "My wife would kill me if I spent that much on a couch." The guy just talked himself down. I was impressed. Unfortunately, it takes 4 months to get the couch in because it was a custom order! Ben figures the wait will just make it seem like we are getting a free couch when it finally comes since we paid for it up front!

As for Sophia's negotiating skills, there's only one way that I am able to spend this much time posting on the blog. She is happily watching Ice Age. I finally gave in and told her she could watch part of it. Of course, she just turned to me a minute ago and said, "Mommy, I'm not watching part of this, you're letting me watch the whole thing." When I said no she wasn't she just smiled and said, "yes, I am." I better go enforce at least one of the things I told her!

2 comments:

annetta said...

Ooooo can you say future lawyer! Very nice! But for now she will just keep you on your toes. Hey kudos to Ben for the couch purchase! We may have to rent him for our future purchases!

Team Davis said...

So, did she get to watch the rest of the movie? I still laugh thinking about the face she made when she saw the carrots in our candy dish!