Dad reports this morning:
Tommy sleeps in right now. Today needs to go well. It will be Santa picture day. Tommy will have the pain of joining Mom and I at the mall to hold a place in line while waiting for the grandparents and other kids to arrrive from church. The noise of the mall and the waiting around will be hard on Tommy.
Last night Tommy wanted to do battle. We set it up so that his staying up until 10pm was a treat and reward for his good day yesterday and kindness to us in the evening. We didn’t use this as a carrot, rather about 7:30pm I called him into the kitchen and said, “it’s your bedtime but..”
When 10pm rolled around I asked for his glasses and he threw a conniption (I’ve never had to spell that word!) He obviously wasn’t ready to settle and intended to stay up reading. He begged for his glasses, lectured about the lack of fairness, refused to hand them over, yelled, screamed, insulted and finally I just reached down and took them to which he screamed, “you pulled my hair! Why are you always hurting me!”
As I walked away he yelled a rude “I’m sorry!” and I ignored it as it was said with little sincerity. Which lead to him barking louder “I’M SORRY! I said I’m sorry! EEewwww. Stop ignoring me!”
Later he wandered into the kitchen and I intervened as he was power chugging milk. He had not gotten to the food yet and was irate that I was booting him from the kitchen. Truth of the matter is I’ve forbidden him from the kitchen but we don’t abide by that well. At the beginning of the summer Tommy weighted in at 206 pounds and a couple of weeks ago he weighted in at 227 pounds. He uses “I’m thristy” as an excuse to raid the kitchen so I’ve told him after lights out he is to get water from the kitchen sink. Last night he barked “I forgot!” An untruth.
He seems to have slept solidly.