Pontificating

Pontificating
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Argh. I suppose I'm healing just fine - I'm not hawking up as much blood today as I have been. I still get headaches if not properly dosed with lortabs, which I quit taking. Poor, poor, pitiful me.

Brenden and I didn't do much this weekend. I bought him some of those big leggos so I had a lot of fun building things. He would destroy them for me, plus he seemed far more interested in pushing the large plastic container they came in. He would stop occasionally and throw things in the container, then push it all around the house some more.

He finally aggravated me to the point I decided I really needed to punish him on Sunday. He just *would not* leave the TV buttons alone! I decided I needed to be creative, because I just can't bring myself to hit him in any fashion. Theoretically I'm not against a slap on the wrist or butt, but I just don't have it in me to whack him hard enough for him to even notice. I like the idea of "Time Outs" but I can't make him sit and I don't want to throw him in his crib. It is hard enough getting him to sleep without associating his bed with punishment.

It occured to me that Mr. Ant-in-his-pants totally hates sitting still for even a few seconds, so I gave him 'time outs' by sitting on the couch with him in my lap. He would squirm and cry about it, and I annoyed him even further by lecturing him about why he couldn't get up for 60 seconds. It worked pretty well about the 4th or 5th time I did it. He'd touch a knob and I'd say "No, Brenden!" then he'd reach again and I'd say 'Do you want a time out?" and you could see him thinking about it. He understands a lot more than I tend to give him credit for.