the warning trap

Yesterday, Truett scooted into the kitchen riding on Caia's new riding/walking toy. I was standing at the stove when he came in and he smiled at me when I looked over. I turned towards him to say, "Tru, you need to get off of that. I've told you several times already that you aren't allowed to ride her toy." My boys tend to be rough with toys and I didn't want them breaking it. Besides, they have bikes to ride on and plenty of other things to play with. But as I thought about what I was going to say, I realized that I really had told him several times that he wasn't allowed to ride it. So instead of repeating myself, I walked over, picked him up, and buckled him into the chair. As I was buckling him in he yelled, "I didn't do anything!" For a moment, he had me wondering. Could it be possible that he didn't know that he had been doing something wrong? Was it wrong of me to strap him in without an explanation? And then I came to my senses and walked back into the kitchen.
When I went back in to get Tru, I knelt down in front of him and said, "What did you do Tru?" And he responded by telling me that he had ridden Caia's toy and that he knew it was wrong.
More often than I would like to admit, I give Truett reminders about behavior rather than just correcting it through discipline. It is a bad habit and it sort of snuck up on me. He will receive a warning, just like the one I was prepared to give. If he doesn't listen after that warning, then he ends up in his chair or he gets a penny in his jar or loses a privilege. So I do a good job of following through on my warnings. But the problem is that I give him too many warnings to begin with. A warning should be for a new behavior. He is old enough now that he doesn't need me to remind him not to ride on Caia's toy or not to throw books or not to spit on the floor. He knows what is acceptable and what isn't. And he is the type that if you give him an inch he takes a mile. So I explained to him that the warnings are going to stop. I'm expecting to hear many more cries of "I didn't do anything wrong!", followed by him admitting to what he did. It will be interesting to see if this is a habit I can break and, in so doing, help him along the way.