Adler and Austen

Sometimes I like to tease my kids, especially Austen now that he's at an age where you can have an actual conversation with him. So last week, I picked him and Peyton up at school per usual. When we got home I unbuckled Austen from his car seat first and then I went around to get Peyton out of the car. Normally, after Austen I would open the back hatch of the car and let Adler out. But that day I didn't have Adler because it was too hot to leave her in the car while I ran inside to get them. Austen hadn't noticed that she wasn't with us that day too absorbed in telling me about his day and his after school snack.

So now that Austen was out of the car and Peyton was out, I hit the button to close the garage door. Immediately Austen was in a panic telling me that I forgot Adler and she was still in the car. I decided to play along. Oh she's in timeout I told him. She has to stay in the garage until her six minutes (her age x 1 minute) are up and I will come back down for her, I lied. "No!' he yelled. "She doesn't know how to open the door!" he cried growing more frantic with each passing second. I was debating how long I should keep the charade up since I could see he was truly concerned about her but I wanted to test him with one last thing before I told him that Adler was safely in our house in the air conditioning.

"Will you give me your new soccer watch (which he had been wearing around the house religiously since he got it a few days before) if i let Adler out of the car?" "Yes!" he pleaded with me, "I'll give you my watch."

Wow, I though to myself clearly impressed that this little boy loved his dog so much that he was willing to give us his current favorite toy to make sure she was safe and not left behind. So I put Austen out of his misery telling him I was kidding and Adler was upstairs waiting to see him. I don't think I've seen him race up the stairs so fast to see if she was really there or if I was kidding him again.