Cry me a river

We've been seeing a lot of crying lately ... I mean A LOT. Every naptime; every bedtime; every time he has to make a decision on whether or not he wants to go with Nana (not to mention the times when he has no choice but to go with her).


Mom's getting really tired of it. Tonight, I threatened the loss of his "Mommy" story if he didn't change his attitude about bedtime and put his toys away (he was throwing a tantrum). He continued to misbehave so he lost the "mommy" story. I should have known that this was a mistake. I should have known not to mess with his bedtime routine, but I was desperate (you'd understand if you'd been at meeting with us tonight), and I didn't know what else to do.


So anyway ... no "mommy" story. All hell broke loose. Hysterical crying. Kicking. At this point, I was at a loss. I had realized my mistake -- you can't take something away from a child that he comes to expect from a routine. But, he was behaving entirely inappropriately. So, I explained that Mommy made a mistake, but I also explained why I had taken the story away. Once I felt he understood, we read a short story (series of poems to be accurate). Then he cried again because he wanted another story.

This morning he opened the pantry door and saw cookies. I need a "spinkle" cookie. Not until you eat breakfast. Allen, you have to eat real food before you have a cookie.
screaming
rolling around on floor
crying, "I don't want weal food. Just cookies!!"

I stopped arguing with him and went back to eating my breakfast. Finally he came over and ate his eggs. After he was done, he said "I a good boy! I ate weal food. I can have a cookie now!"

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for this stage -- the tantrum stage? The crying. The "I need" stage? I've tried reasoning. I've tried hugging. I usually remain very calm. I speak quietly to him. Do I just have to hold on until it passes? Help, please?!

xoxo,

Owen, More Cuteness

First things first ... the promised cookie photos:


So I thought that Allen couldn't get much cuter than his comment about eating cookies "all all day," but it turns out that he can -- and he did.

This afternoon Allen talked to Nana and Papa for a long time, and cried the first time they tried to get off the phone. So they continued to talk to him about how they were going to take him to the park to swing on the swings and ride the see-saw, and play in the house that's there. Finally, they got off the phone, and he called Mom-mom's house to talk to Owen (more on that shortly). A short while later, Allen just started walking around the house crying. We asked him what was wrong, and he said "Park! Park!" The he said, "Nana and Papa!" I asked him if he wanted to call them, and he shook his head, and said, "No, see Nana and Papa!" I guess he thought they were coming right away to take him to the park, and he was very upset that they had not arrived yet. Poor little guy :(

Back to talking with Owen. Allen gets an absolute kick out of talking to Owen (and if you recall from an earlier post, it is hilarious because he communicates primarily in screams and grunts). So today, I decided to videotape it for your enjoyment. Because there is little that brings more joy than hearing a child laugh.

Allen has been broadening his horizons lately, as far as toys go, so instead of just cars to clean up each night, we have cars, blocks, books, markers, etc. Usually he's pretty good about cleaning up before bed, but last night we had a little issue with it, so he wasn't allowed to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom before bed. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do -- he was so upset, that he almost became inconsolable -- but with the difficulties we've been having lately, we decided to stand our ground.

Well, tonight, I felt so good about our decision. Because when it was time to clean up his toys, he hopped right off my lap and started helping. Not one complaint out of his mouth. Not only that, but he went right up the stairs, and asked to have a bath! Finally, we saw some positive results out of all this disciplining we're doing.

So we read our stories, and were saying our goodnights, when Allen decided he needed to add six more stuffed animals to his brood (they usually sit in a little shelf in his room). So we tossed them into the crib to join the others. We laid him in bed and started to cover him with his blankets, when he decided that each stuffed animal needed a kiss. He had to sit up, grab the animal, lay down, kiss it, and then repeat ... for each of the dozen or so animals in the bed! He even had to kiss "extra blanket" (the extra blanket we put on him when it got really cold here).

We finally got through it all, and turned off the lights. As we closed the door, Brian said, "And you thought you were done blogging today ...." It's true -- the kid gives me so much fodder for this blog that I'm never struck with writer's block.

Goodnight to you all!

xoxo,

I hate Gummy Bears

So remember my Bribery post from a couple days ago? How excited I was by my brilliant plan to use bribery (or positive reinforcement) to help train Allen to behave at meetings? Well, we tried it today at the meeting. It didn't work so well. In fact, the whole plan kinda blew up in my face.

We spent the entire first half of the meeting sobbing. Daddy tried to calm him down. Mommy tried to calm him down. Nothing worked. Finally Allen decided that he could go to the seat and sing the song. So I gave him a few gummy bears since he calmed himself down. Then he lost it again because he wanted the rest of the gummy bears. It took me another 15 minutes to calm him down from that episode. When we finally got back to the seat, he had missed his opportunity to raise his hand to answer "Noah." Though when someone else did, his eyes lit up, and he look at me and whispered "Noah!" At least he was listening.

For the remainder of the Watchtower he did pretty well. But then during the final song, he started messing around in Nana's purse. Therefore, during he prayer, he was not behaving (and was making noise opening and closing her eye glass case). As soon as we tried to pull him away, he screamed. I had to practically run out of the auditorium into the bathroom.

Needless to say, I was exhausted after the meeting. Utterly exhausted. So, loyal readers (all four or five of you), do you have any suggestions for how we can help Allen behave during the meetings? I welcome -- even plead for -- your suggestions.

xoxo,



P.S. I apologize for the lack of photos. I tried to post them, but Blogger is not letting me.

Bribery

The kid has actually been pretty darn delightful for the past few days. We kinda hit rock bottom on Monday, as far as the Terrible Twos go. Book study was a nightmare. Daddy ended up missing the last 10 or 15 minutes of it because Allen was so naughty. He screamed randomly; ran away from Nana -- and when she caught him screamed (during book study) "LET GO!"; and blatantly tested both Daddy and me. This was in spite of numerous rounds of discipline (by both parents). I was utterly exhausted and distraught by Tuesday morning. I really just didn't know what to do. I prayed about it, and did some research, and came up with a new idea ...

Bribery. OK, well maybe not blatant, outright bribery. To be proper, I should probably call it positive reinforcement or something like that. But basically, for those times when we know he could be challenging (diaper changing, tubby time, meetings, dinner) we tell him that if he is a good boy and does such and such, he will get a surprise. The surprise is a combination of candy gummy bears and these:

Allen calls them teddy bears, and he LOVES them. It's actually been working so far this week. Unfortunately, since we were under the weather tonight, we didn't get to try it for meeting tonight. But we will definitely be trying it out on Sunday.

Call it what you will ... but this approach really seems to be working. He's been changing his attitude much more quickly, and we're having fewer actual meltdowns. Of course, we're also trying to talk him through his frustrations and to comfort him as much as we can as well. Maybe I'm naive, but I think it could be working.

xoxo,