Consequences

This week started out a little rough, but I'm determined to end it on a high note.

During Sacrament Meeting on Sunday Parker passed some gas stinky enough to fool Paul and I into thinking that he'd pooped. I grabbed a diaper and wipes and was ready to take Parker to the bathroom when Paul decided to do a quick visual to make sure that Parker actually had a messy diaper.  Turns out it was a false alarm, but the prospect of potentially leaving the chapel was like dangling a donut in front of his face and then eating it yourself.  It was too much for Parker to handle.  His good behavior quickly turned sour and he started acting up.  I took him out to the foyer, but made him sit on my lap and told him that he could only get down if it was to go back into the chapel and sit next to dada and Kate.  He consented, only to be taken out again moments later. This time we had to go into a classroom because even in the foyer he was being disruptive.  In fact, people in the chapel could probably still have heard him from where we were in the classroom.  Determined to not have a repeat performance this Sunday, I pronounced the worst punishment I could think of: no iPad for a week. Paul and I have purposefully used the iPad in front of Parker to remind him of the consequences of his behavior. Hopefully it's enough to motivate him to be better behaved this Sunday.

I think Parker has given up his naps.  Today marks the fifth consecutive day he hasn't taken one.  The first three days were rough to say the least, but with an earlier bedtime, things have more or less equilibrated. On Monday he was in timeout no less than ten times. (I pray that by now he has learned to not throw things... books at Kate's head in particular.) During one of those timeout sessions, he threw something at his light switch that caused it to break.  When I told him that he'd have to use some of his birthday money to buy a new one he was devastated and when I said that he'd have to use one of the "big monies" (anything greater than $1 is considered big), he was even more broken up.

The next day he found himself once again in timeout. Usually timeout is only a few minutes long, but somehow in those three minutes he managed to dump all of his toys, stuffed animals and most of his clothes onto the floor. I remember learning in a BYU class about how children can get overwhelmed with a long to-do list; their brains can process only one thing at a time, so telling a child to just "clean your room" may be too much for them to handle.  Instead, you should break up the tasks and allow them to finish a task before giving them another one.  I've noticed that this is true with Parker in other areas as well.  If I say, "Ok, eat your sandwich and what would you like to drink?" he'll freak out and say, "No! I have to eat my sandwich! I can't have a drink."  Anyway,  I can often get him to clean up if we do it together, but it felt like rewarding his bad choices if I helped him clean up when he'd made the mess out of anger.  But I knew that he'd need a little guidance, so I told him to start with his train tracks.  "No, mama clean up my train tracks."  Ha!  Yeah right. I ended up leaving his room and shutting the door (he has a child lock on the inside) and told him that he could come out after he cleaned up his tracks.  Hello tantrum!  I went to check on him every so often, but I think it was about 45 minutes before his tracks were put away.  And then we cleaned up the rest together.  I guess we both won that one.