The wonderful world of time-out

"My turn?" sweetly.

"MY TURN NOW" not as sweetly.

"MINE!" not very sweet at all.

thud
smack
crash
and scream.

While much of this is age appropriate learning of sharing, respect and kindness . . .she has really gone hog wild with it. She'll even clobber you if the toy she has isn't following her every command. Needless to say, Sedona has been introduced to the wonderful world of time-out. Sadly, though, until last Friday, she went unaffected into and out of time-outs, biding her time until the next battle. She would sit quietly, almost contentedly in time-out until told to get up, informed (again) of the discrepancies between her behavior and acceptable social human behavior, then run full speed to her most recent victim and hug, kiss and soothe them.

Frustrating as the parent hoping to employ time-out as a deterent to such actions as hitting, pushing, screaming and biting to have a child who seems just fine with her time in the penalty box.(Note: she is not actually put in a box, but rather a very pretty striped chair. call off DCFS). What to do? Remove her from that setting. Sure. Take away that toy to make a point about sharing. Sure. All of these are completely reasonable and sometimes very effective. For most kids anyway. Not my kids.

As I learned long long ago, I breed a particularly resistant variety of child. A stubborn, strangely manipulative, smart and painfully adorable, devil-may-care variety of child. Jordan never minded a time out. Never minded a spanking. Wouldn't dare give you (or me as the case may have it) the satisfaction of letting any of it get to him. Now some might say this describes criminal behavior. and well, yes it does. I tried everything with my little Jordan (and have started down that same path with Miss Sedona recently) until one day we stumbled across a goldmine.

"Mom" matter of fact, from an attempted time-out for a naughty mouth "I just absolutely do not like to have time-out with my nose on the wall."

oh, really? Well thanks for that little tidbit, dear.

And from that day forward time-outs in our house have been nose on wall, hands at side.

Which brings me to last Friday when Sedona was in a particularly foul mood, swinging and swatting at everyone and everything that did not comply with her every whim. I decided suddenly that the rules are no different for her (duh) and that nearly 2 is plenty old enough to comply with the time-out statutes of the land. And Sedona found herself standing in the hallyway, nose on the wall, hands at her sides.

And there she stood.
Quiet.
Alarmed? Maybe. Planning her next move? Certainly.

She earned 5 such time-outs in the next hour as she continued to try and hit Miles, push Miles over, slap me, throw toys and so on and so forth. By the next attempted assault, I held her hand and said "Sedona, do want another time-out?"

Eyes wide, mouth pursed as if saying MOOOO, "NOoooo!".

Cease and desist. She left the room, left the toy, left the boy alone. And did not even come close to another infraction until midday Saturday. There may be hope for her yet.


In related news . . .
She really is awfully stinkin cute. And an absolute riot. But so rotten!
So I was talking to my mom one crazy afternoon and said "Was I this bad? Was I really this rotten? Is this payback? But not THIS ornery, right?" and other such inquiries when I met with this reply, that is, after she stopped laughing at me. . . .

"Jana - do you think you've had a compliant day in your life?"

Wow. I guess I asked for it.

"It just kinda makes me like. . . "

So I sat down with my bagel and my kids yesterday morning for a nice, relaxing breakfast for a change. You can usually find me scrambling to get lunches packed, locate backpacks and schoolwork all while feeding all three (mine plus Miles) and trying to get the laundry etc started for the day. But not yesterday. Yesterday I said, ever so eloquently, "screw it."

I scribbled a quick list of chores for the day while I chewed and Jordan looked worried. He asked,"Mom, umm why do you write like (and then a manic, stabbing, scribbling, frenzy of activity) so fast and crazy?"
note: I didn't really thinking I was writing any faster than your average person who has mastered handwriting techniques and graduated third grade. Nevertheless - concern.

I replied, "I don't know.(shrug) I guess I just do. Why?"

"Because it just kinda makes me, like, i dunno, think weird stuff."

"Weird stuff? Really. Ok like what? What do you mean "weird stuff"?"

Deep sigh. . . . . "well . . . like, well, ummmm . . . . . , i dunno like maybe you're a psycho or something."


and I'll leave you with that.

"Mom?"

Jordan has a bedtime routine that usually includes calling me back into the room at least 3 times and then taking long slong breaths accompanied by drawn out "uhhhhh . . . ummmmmm . . .well I don't EXACTLY know how to say it but . . . . . ."and then some short mouth noises and he opens his mouth with an almost "tsk" only to close it again when no words come out. All of this is to say that he never really knows why I absolutely had to come back in, he never knows exactly what it is he wanted to ask me, and he never, ever, has anything as urgent as he hoped it might be to say.

You can imagine the frustration at the end of a long day and the wrestling that results in the children actually IN their beds only to be repeatedly summoned back to the room (oftentimes loudly, threatening to awaken the smaller beast) for no stinking reason. By the third summons my reply goes something like this:
"What?! Jordan, it is bedtime, you have your water, your music is on, the closets are closed and now it is time to sleep. No more questions. We can talk more in the morning and if you yell again and wake your sister up there is going to be trouble."

Now imagine with me the suprise when you return to the room after exchanging similar dialogue and dramatic breathing and are met with "Mom? Can you stay and watch me sin?"

??????????

"What?!"
"Will you stay here while I sin?"

and again . . . ?????????????????
What would be going through your mind at this point? Beyond confusion there was alarm, laughter, and horror - to name but a few.

"Jordan, what are you talking about? Do you know what sin is?"
"Well, when you ask God to forgive you for all the bad things you did."

Damn semantics.

Sigh of relief.

And then a note to clarify terms.

Just another short tease . . .

Well afternoon has come and gone with the realization that I might never get caught up with all the things I had wanted to post here if I don't just sit down and tackle it a tiny tiny bit at a time. So here is another brief anecdote (should you ever want to use it as such).

In the early days of blogging I appealed to my audience; searching for a definition or at least a lead as to what SBD might mean to dino loving 6 year old. I appeal to you again as my other child has formulated a phrase, not entirely uncomical, but quizical nevertheless.

"Buttball".

Now don't laugh. This is a serious matter. Can you imagine the audience this phrase gets? Can you imagine how hard it is not to laugh each time it crosses her lips? Can you imagine the concern of playdates' parents? Can you imagine the unsavory attention she is sure to attract in the future if we don't decode and reprogram the child? Like I said - a serious matter.

Buttball can be used as noun, verb or adjective it seems. Sometimes explanatory but usually more exclamatory, as in "You dropped the box of cereal - BUTTBALL" (sounds like maybe it should be "uh-oh" right? but you see, it isn't. She says that very clearly and it doesn't sound at all like buttball) or even "whatchya doing? - (response) Buttball. (calmly here. matter of fact even).

I will also add that in recent days the "buttball" seems to be giving way to a slightly more appropriate "butt-bo". I'm not sure yet how this will affect its usage or meanings. I'll keep you posted.

So please, I appeal to you all. . . .is there some secret language, a code revealed only through special decoder glasses or even an expression in another language that this darling child of mine has picked up somewhere? Do tell.

The Youngest Karate Kid

Sitting here at the computer this morning with Sedona and Dad playing nearby. A lovely little game of kisses on the cheek and the shivers and silly noises that derive squeals of joy from the littlest. It seemed an innocent enough game.

Daddy says "Shave off my beard. Gentle. Shave it off", allowing young Sedona to rub a toy thermometer (from Jordan's Playschool doctor's kit). She pauses, "HI . . .YA!" and with a crazy eye whacks thermometer to beard and laughs.

I'll post more later . . . we've had some other special moments as of late. So special, in fact, that I'll have to dedicate most of the afternoon to capturing them for you.

And we're off to have breakfast. . .

Merry freaking Christmas. Bah humbug!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Nintendo. Mario Brothers 1. Old school.

And here we have Jordan sporting the all purpose windsock.

Yes yes. I was there too.

I am not spam.

I have to take a breather from the pictures. It thinks I am spamming myself when really - I'm spamming you. So there.





All right. That should suffice.

Who me? Whining? Never! Much too angelic for that kind of thing.

Her first ornament

Again with the whining!

What have we got here? Dancing queen and whiny ***. I hate to say it, folks but I speak the truth.

The exposure here isn't too great but you can still sort of see that she is pointing down yelling SNOW!

Devil fish?

Lobes.

There is the duck towel I mentioned only moments ago. He put bibs on the both of them and sat down to feed her applesauce.

I am so thankful for two kids who couldn't love each other more. They have really grown into one another and spend much of their time playing together. Here they are building a Pteradactyl out of Legos. Jordan is the design end of the outfit while Sedona is in as the laborer.