Patience

One thing that small children do not have is patience. I remind myself this about a hundred times every day as I am asked once again to "get" or "give", "find" or "help" while I'm up to my elbows in laundry or trying to grade yet another paper.

Last night, I put up the advent calendar I made while waiting for a child to placed with me. It taught me a little about patience in the making.  We all had that first piece of chocolate and then the cuddler and I went into his room for something. When we returned the living room, I found Lala standing on a chair next to the advent calendar with chocolate on her face. This one per day thing was pretty lost on her at the time. What was there to do but tell her that she had to forgo her chocolate tonight and tomorrow night.

This morning, the cuddler climbed up and grabbed two chocolates while I was getting Lala dressed. He wasn't showing a lot of patience this morning.

Now I'm left with a quandary. Do we start the advent calendar again? Leave for the next two days as each ate two chocolates? Bag the whole thing until next year? Find a different kind of advent calendar? Opinions?