Ready? or Not Ready?

Awhile back, I had a status update on Facebook that went something like this:

To all my neighbors--those screams coming from my house were from Drew. It sounded like I was beating him, but I was just cutting his toenails. :) 

A very smart lady named Cindi Rogers responded.  She said:

Kristie--remember the "ready, not-ready" technique. It takes extra time and patience, but it's what has helped us a lot. Not to say that it's perfect...far from it, but it's a lot more cooperative and less physical. Also, we always ask "...ok, since your ready, what do you want to talk about?" This is funny cause Joe almost always wants to talk about Red Robin! Hahahaha. Thinking about food when cutting toe nails....yuck! LOL

I tried the ready, not-ready technique invented by Cindi when I wanted to cut Drew's fingernails the other day.  I said, "Drew I want to cut your fingernails.  Are you ready?"  He said, "No fingernails!"  I said "Oh, so you're not ready?  Ok.  Well, let me know when you are."  I left him and a couple minutes later he came up to me and said, "No feet?"  I said, "No feet.  Just your fingernails need cut."  He said, "Ok, I'm ready."  I about died!  Well, not really, but I was pretty surprised.
  

I got the scissors and knelt down in front of him.  He again asked, "No feet, right?"  Again I assured him that we weren't doing his feet.  I forget what we talked about, but it went smoothly.  Awesome.  

Toenails are always more difficult for him, but they really needed done.  I said the same thing to him today as I did about his fingernails the other day.  He reacted strongly in the negative.  I tried to be nonchalant and said, "That's fine.  Let me know when you're ready."   

He started crying and getting worried about it.  I said, "If you're not ready, it's ok.  Just tell me when."  After a few false starts and offers from me to stop, we got it done with only a few tears shed.  No screams. 

I told him I was very proud of him.  To which he replied, "I am very proud of you too, Mom!"  Funny guy.

Anyway, thanks to Cindi Rogers for reminding me of the Ready, Not-ready technique.  It worked!  He was a lot calmer and no one was injured in the process.  lol.