I Love You....

Luke has been silent in his bed for some time. Out of the blue I hear him call out to Daddy....

Scott goes in there and I hear Luke say "Daddy, I love you more than Cocoa Puffs"

That's saying a whole lot. The kid loves him some Cocoa Puffs.

:-)

Had a rough night with Ally. After taking her to the salon, going out to the farm to get eggs and taking the kids to the park, she had a major fit. I hate moments like that when I feel all I did was for her and she just bites me in the butt. It's so hard.

She spent the entire night in her room. I did not back down as much as I wanted to once she calmed down. I will not and do not make empty threats.

If I learned anything at all.... It's that you do not make empty threats or give warnings. You do not tell a kid "if you do that again you are getting a time out.". Warnings are an invitation for bad behavior. You are asking for it. Plain and simple. You are backing them into a corner. It's a lose/lose.

All a "if you do that again I'm going to give you a time out" says to your kid is that you dare them to do it. And nine out of ten times, they do it again. And do you actually follow through? Nine times out of ten you probably don't. I know I didn't.

So I give no warnings. Make no threats. And quickly follow through on my punishments now. It sucks. It really does. But there is no other way.

Ally screamed and screamed at me from her room. She slammed her door and told me it was my head. She said she felt good when she was mean to me. All of it was a giant pile of suck.

Then.... She was sad. She went through the sad phase. And she mourned how she made me feel. And that she lost out on an entire night with the family. Especially since Scott will be gone the next few nights.

But we held fast. And in her room she stayed. And she was quiet and read. And at the end of the day we talked about what went wrong and how to not let it go wrong tomorrow. And I told her I love her always. No matter what. And she apologized. And it all seems ok now.... Even though for so long it sucked so bad.

That's the thing about everything in life. It always seems ok after it just seems like it will always suck.

Stick out your suck blog friends. Ok and, if you're lucky, even better is right around the corner.