Reasoning With a One Year Old

One year olds, it turns out, are great debaters, or at least my Eddie is. Unlike other people you might try to argue with, Eddie stays fiercely on-topic. He sticks to the relevant points and doesn't give up. Earlier this week, he was climbing around and looked out the window. At the bottom of his slide rested his beloved large playground ball. We then had this conversation: Eddie: Ball Jami: Yup, that's your ball. E: Ball! (he points) Ball! J: Yes, I see it, it's outside. Where the rain is, see the rain? E: (looking disgusted, he gets down off the couch, goes to the door and pats it) Ball! (he does the signs for "more" and please" and says, with great emphasis) BALL! J: I know you want to go play ball, but it's getting dark and raining pretty hard. We'll play ball tomorrow. E: (getting annoyed)BALL-BALL-BALL! More Ball!! The conversation continued along in this vein for quite a long while. I got him his "indoor" ball. I offered him candy, I did everything I could think of to distract or entertain him, took him upstairs, even (yes, I know, it's wrong) tried to bribe him with a few Pez (which just added crunching noises to the "Ball!" demands). He would not give an inch. He would not get off-topic. He would not be dissauded. Eventually he did lose the argument, because I am bigger and meaner and simply put him in his crib with a book until he calmed down and stopped saying "ball". I'm going to have to brush up on my debating skills, though, for the day when that's not an option. I plan to use the "Because I said so and I'm the mommy" line as a closer. You can't trump the Mommy Card.