Dad reports:
Tommy enters room holding a dead light bulb and shoves it into my face shaking it.
Reaction: “Get that out of my face! Put it back someone could get electrocuted.”
Response (what should have happened): “That’s cool.” Followed by reminder about personal space. Followed by electricity lesson; how a bulb works; who is created with its creation; how to safely change a bulb.
Reactive Parenting almost isn’t parenting at all.
Responsive Parenting is challenging.
Dad reports:
Tommy is still confined to his room where he is happily playing Playstation 2 (link to Amazon).
Tommy is feeling better. He’s getting tired of being stuck in his room and becoming cranky. With all of the children I’ve noticed that there is period of time after being sick where they are starting to feel better but don’t yet feel good and are therefore cranky and irritable. So in this case, Tommy’s cranky is a good thing.
Tommy had a good time in the snow and came in to warm himself by the fire. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it had been out since 6am. He didn’t seem to notice.
Dad just came in and asked me if Tommy and I know that there is no fire in the woodburning stove. I told him not to tell Tommy. Tommy is too content sitting in front of it reading to disturb.
The patient (who is still contagious) has talked me into letting him go outside twice. Once to sled down the hill and once to make a small snowman. Now he’s reading in our bedroom where the woodburning stove is doing its’ job. He is calm and content today. I think the snow makes everyone happy. Maybe we should move to the mountains.
Dad reports This Morning:
Tommy awoke just before 7:30 and received his medicine shortly thereafter. He is excited about buidling his model helicopter that he got in the gift shop of the Air and Space museum at Wrights-Patterson Airforce Base in OH over Christmas break.
Dad reports Last Night:
The grandparents watched Tommy and his siblings while the parents did volunteer Red Cross work at the Jeff Foxworthy show. He was asleep when we got home.