That’s Hhhhhot

I added the extra h’s so Paris Hilton cannot sue me.

This morning after breakfast, right before Andy took Belén to school, Belén helped me make my coffee.

I have been looking for a perfect opportunity to teach Belén the concept of hot but every possible scenario we have encountered has been too dangerous…campfires, ovens, flat irons.

So when she started trying to touch the coffee coming out of my Keurig machine, I quickly touched it myself to make sure it wasn’t too hot and would burn her, then as she continued to try and touch the stream of coffee, I didn’t pull her away from it.

She eventually put her finger into the stream of brewed coffee, held it there for about five seconds and then started crying.  Andy instantly looked at me like I was a horrible horrible person.  Meanwhile, I comforted Belén while continuing to say, “that was hot.  HOT. Hot Belén. hot. HOT. hot.”  ”See how we don’t want to touch things that are hot?”

Then, I took her over to the sink and put her finger under the cold water to help soothe her toasty finger.

She continued to cry.  Andy continued to more-or-less glare at me and I continued to snuggle B and then started tickling her and she eventually started giggling.

I wiped the tears from Belén’s face and she and Andy went off to school.  While I did feel bad, I was actually really glad to have finally had an opportunity to teach Belén about the concept of hot because with all of the warm or slightly hot props I had used in the past, she just didn’t seem to grasp the dangerous aspect of it.  I hope this dramatic exercise served it’s purpose and did teach her the important lesson of hot.  Otherwise, I am just a really mean mom.

I realize after this episode that Andy and I need to get on the same page about how we will teach similar lessons in the future.  Before we do that, I am curious what you all think.

Was I too horrible or do you agree this was a good opportunity to teach a very important concept involving safety?  Was it okay to allow her to hurt herself in this contained environment for the sake of learning?  Obviously I felt like it was a perfect situation (assuming she learned the lesson) but I understand others might not agree with that.  So weigh in in the Comments section if you have an opinion.  I would love to hear it.

Here’s to hoping you are not too hot this weekend!  We are planning to get Andy’s adopted catamaran that he has been restoring out on the water.  The number one goal is to see if it floats.  Then if it does, we will attempt to dust off some of our sailing skills.  Wish us (especially Andy) luck!

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Tagged as: contained environment, hot, lesson, Parenting