Monday, August 9, 2010

I fought a 4 year old and the 4 year old won:(

Connor, like most children his age, is known for stalling tactics at bed time. Things such as: "I have to go potty." "I have to go poopy." "I need to tell you something." and if I walk in he says, "love you" "I need a hug" "I miss you" "When you going to bed, 10:00?" I think that about covers them. Oh and the just sneaking across the hall to hide in my room or after I do go to bed he tries to crawl in bed with us. So since Paul has left I have to admit the first night I told him at 10 when I went to bed I would bring him in to my bed and when he says he's scared I melt a little and am concerned till I go in and all it takes is a hug, then I realize I was scammed. So last night I decided to do some tough love. Does anyone remember the show "Mad About You" when they decided to let Mable cry it out? It was an hour show, no commercial breaks and it was them at the door saying things like, "We are teaching her to self soothe" and then mom would reply, "Are you sure we aren't just teaching her that we won't always be there when she needs us?" Well Connor got a bath at 7:45, in bed by 8 but then Paul called so he got to talk to Dad little and then I put him down. I was in my room talking to Paul when he opened his door and said he had to go potty. I honestly couldn't remember if he went before his bath or not so I told him he could go. Then I hung up with Paul, we attached the link to our paper chain that we forgot to do, then I put Connor back to bed. He said, "Mom, I need to tell you 3 things. I need to go potty, I just go. You going to bed at ten o'clock. I need to stay in bed." To which I replied "Yes, good night" and I was out the door and downstairs in one fell swoop to watch True Blood:) I got down there about 8:30 and away we went on our True Blood ride. You know what our background music was???????????? "Mooooommmmmmyyyyyyy, I neeeeeed to go poooooooootttttttyyyyyyyy!" "I need a hug" over and over. Robin and I were talking about it and I decided to not go up. To just ignore it and he would go back to bed, right????????? One would think. So we finished True Blood, and started watching Mad Men. And he was still screaming. It went from conversational tones to screaming, jumping up and down and throwing things. I held tight and turned up the TV's volume. Went back to conversational tones, then crying and whining and back to craziness. I held tight but started to wonder when I looked at the clock and it was 9:45. Well at 10:15 when our shows were done we went up. I took him by the hand and led him back to his room and closed the door. He erupted again, he kept coming in my room, banging on my door (right outside Abby's room) screaming and throwing things. I walked him back to his room a number of times. By 11pm I caved and said, "BED, NOW!" He looked at me and said, "sorry mommy, good night" to which I replied, "night" and then silence until 6am when he came in to my room bright eyed and bushy tailed saying, "I have to go potty mommy." Fine then back to bed Connor. Didn't hear anything else till 7:45am. What in the heck will be in store tonight????? That was the hardest thing, I just wanted to go up and hug him. I have a jar of change that Paul left for the kids to give them through out the year. I really don't want to pay my son to stay in bed but it may be worth a few coins to NEVER have to go through that again. I'll keep you all posted.......

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