Let me give this some thought...

Brennan has lately really been thinking about his actions and been learning to control his frustration, and it has been fascinating to watch.

This morning, we were ready to go to daycare, and Brennan wanted to take one of his cars with him while he walked down the stairs to the garage. I've been trying to impress on him lately that he shouldn't go up and down stairs carrying things. So I told him that he couldn't bring the car with him. He started to get a little upset. Then we had about a 20 second staring match -- my eyes basically telling him "yes, really, put the car down, and let's go." Finally, without any real fuss, he relented, and walked over to his bag of cars, put the car in the bag, and then walked over to the stairs. It was great not needing to physically remove the car from his hands -- that now he'll just pause and think, and then do what he's told.

Same thing when we got to daycare. He was playing with a leapfrog drawing thing in the car on the way over, and when we got there, he wasn't done playing. He wanted to take it in with him. I told him he couldn't. I could tell he was annoyed, but after about a 20 second pause for thought, he said "okayyyy," dropped the leapfrog toy, and reached out for me to pick him up out of the carseat.

Hopefully this agreeableness isn't just a fad for Brennan and he sticks to it. I much prefer this approach to the old way -- tantrums, crying, etc.