What does whining get you?

The naughty step has become my friend over the last couple of weeks as we've been trying to reset the boundaries and undo all of daddy's spoiling tactics whilst we were away.

We've also managed to kick the last habit of babyhood - the dummy! To the delight of my friend the speech therapist - unfortunately her foreboding that children who use dummies past 6 months are sure to have speech problems was always proved wrong whenever DS opened his mouth as he spoke early, clearly and frequently. He baffles me sometimes with the things he comes out with. During the period of giving up dummy he was rewarded with various 'prizes' - for example when he now asks for it we can simply say 'but you had your Windmill for your Thomas set, do you want to take that back to the Giraffe shop?' and the whining usually stops.

Usually. Today we've had whinging and whining from the end of nursery - from the second we appeared at the door he was asking for cakes/sweets/gingerbread men. Finally my OH exploded - 'What does whining get you?' in his scariest voice - to which the reply was a angelic smile and 'food!'

Wrapped around his little finger? Of course.