A codie wake-up call came once when I was reading my son one of my favorite kiddie lit books--Horton Hatches an Egg--where lazy bird Mazie talks Horton into sitting on her egg while she goes out and has fun--promising she'll come back, but she doesn't ... for months. But Horton stays true to his word, through the rain and the sleet and the snow as the seasons go on with no sign of Mazie. I LOVED that book.
But when I read to my son Horton's steadfast mantra: "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant--an elephant faithful one hundred per Cent," he said, "You mean, an elephant STUPID one hundred per cent!"
Given the end of that book is Horton with Mazie and the little mixed specie hatchling happily dancing along as family, my son's comment was a great dose of reality.