February 2, 2009

Forty-five minutes

I haven't posted in a week, and that's a little painful. I've been in a little bit of a funk . . . I'm tired, I guess. And Jack's been testing us at every turn which compounds things. I had an entire post re-capping the last week and this last weekend with friends and I lost the entire thing a little bit ago. Thank you, blogger.

Last Friday, Jack sat in time out for 45 minutes. I don't even remember what started it, but I'm sure it had something to do with having his diaper changed. Diaper changes have become quite difficult.

So, he went into time out. I came back a minute or two later and asked, "Are you ready to obey?" He reached out and hit my arm and yelled, "NO!"

Um, excuse me?

What on earth made him think it was ok to hit his mother? Or anyone, for that matter? I did my best to keep my composure and firmly told him that hitting was a "no-no" and that he needed to stay in time out.

For the next 40 minutes, we continued to ask if he was ready to obey and while he didn't try hitting us anymore, he yelled, "NO!" every time. He sat in the chair the whole time. He wiggled and squirmed, but never tried to get down. He fussed a little, but never cried. I have no idea what was going on in his head.

So, we opted to keep him home from grandma's on Friday so that we could be consistent and see this through to the end. I have no idea what made him finally start saying, "Obey, obey."

What I do know is that sometimes, parenthood is a mystery.

2 comments:

Bruce and Lynn Jarrett said...

Looks like you are very good parents. Jack just may thank you some day! Hang in there!

Sarah said...

wow...this kind of sounds like my past two days at school! ONE little guy (who I really dearly love) has been testing EVERY limit yesterday and today, and I've left school BOTH days with an aching headache.

Well, it sounds like you guys have good strategies in place though for ensuring consistency in your discipline so that Jack knows what his expectations are. It's definitely going to pay off....and you'll see the results of that frequently. Good Job!!!