Compromise and a Miracle occurs

We had a miraculous break through this weekend.

J has been a tough nut to crack when it comes to compromise. Each time Ryan and I tried to come to some middle ground, the mere mention of him not getting everything that he wants sends him into tears.

It may sound like I am exaggerating, but almost every conversation about it went like this:
"J, we don't have time to play a game before dinner, how about we play half a game and finish it after dinner?"
"Nooooooo! I wanted to play NOW!"
"But we can play now, we'll just have to wait to finish later"
"NOOOOO! I wanted to play NOW! That's not fair!"
"Would you rather we not play at all?"
"NOOOOOOOOO, I wanted to play NOW!"

This weekend, Ryan explained compromise to him (not that we haven't explained it to him many times before). It seems to have sunk in. Here comes the miracle...

For dinner, we decided on Pasta with Chicken. Pasta is a Freak Out Food for J. Even the mention of it as an item OTHERS are having sends him over the top. So I decided to use our new tool. I went to him as dinner was cooking and explained that we were having Pasta. He started to get upset, so I explained that I knew he didn't love pasta, so could we compromise? I asked him if he would like to have half of the pasta dish.. the pasta or the sauce? (He is a sauce-0-phobe, so I knew the answer to this one). He chose the pasta. I asked if we could compromise by me putting some butter and Parmesan cheese on it. He agreed that would be ok.

When we sat down to dinner, he had a small bowl of Penne with butter and Parmesan, he ate it up (he ate it FIRST!). I was so shocked and proud and exhausted (that may be the cold...) I even took a picture. I tried not to make a big thing of it, but this was a really big day.

Yeah turning 6!