Thursday, May 26, 2011

We May Have a Problem

Because Dakin is like any other child, I treat him as such. And of course, that includes time outs. Our time outs entail ceasing whatever we are doing and taking away all toys for three minutes. We don't put him in the corner-logistically that would be inconvenient and kind of counter productive- so we let him stay wherever he is. When the three minutes are over, we always discuss what happened, with me saying "ok, why were you in time out?" Dakin will answer why, say sorry and we go on with playing or whatever.

We had to do it a a lot a few months ago because he went through a little phase where he was hitting a lot. With consistency in time outs, we no longer have a problem with Dakin hitting. The time out had largely disappeared from our daily activity.

Until the last few days.

You see, Mommy has a problem with saying the word 'stupid', directed at everything in the house that happens to be acting obnoxiously- my phone, the iPad, the people on the television. Now, of course, the obvious exception to this is the people in the house. Only objects or people on the TV who are being stupid get called stupid. I am trying to stop saying it.

But little mynah bird boy has picked up on this and has started saying it. So re-enter the time out. Tonight he took great joy in saying stupid over and over, so of course he got stuck in time out. Thirty seconds into it I hear him say this: "OK, why in time out? Say stupid," obviously going over our post-time out ritual.

So...he is clearly on to my methodology. And while I am glad of that, I don't know how effective the time out was when he could tell I was laughing even though I was hiding my face.

Ah well.

5 comments:

Greek Goddess said...

Such a cute story. Thanks for sharing.

Heather said...

Is it bad that I just love that he says stupid?Cuz I do.I really,really do.Smart and funny little precious guy.

Christie Y Brown said...

Yep, just like his pumpkin patch friends!!!! Zackary got put in time out tonight for repeating (over and over and over) what his big brother says all the time "loser"

Only, Zackary fell asleep in time out before any other talking could happen, lol.

Bethany said...

You are better than me because I would not have even had a chance to cover or turn my face before laughing hysterically. I think he was trying to speed the process along there, knowing what he needed to say to end time out, and that is brilliant.

Victoria Strong said...

Oh my gosh. That is hysterical! Pretty soon he's going to put you in a time out :)