Trouble Box

Today was difficult. To say the least... Part of it was my own fault, I admit it. Hindsight, it could have been worse. Deep breath... here goes...

H woke up in a great mood. He wanted Mimi to feed him oatmeal, like she did when she was home with him during the day. Then we played with trains in the living room and he said he wanted to watch a show. So I asked him if he wanted to watch 'Ice Age' or 'Doctor Who?' semi kidding. But he said he wanted to watch 'Doctor Who?'. His daddy is going to hate me for introducing Harper to sci-fi. I can't help it. I didn't do it on purpose. One day, he was taking a nap, and I was watching DW. I didn't hear him get up and walk into the living room, but before I knew it, we were cuddled on the couch watching David Tennant do his thing.

Anyway... we needed to go to Target for a bit, so I fed H lunch at 11a and we headed out the door. I didn't think we'd be gone that long, so I didn't worry about the time. But H was really whiny when we were there, so we just headed home. When we were in the car, I saw the clock said 1:30p! Holy cow... NO WONDER he's whiny! It's past his naptime! Ugh... I'm such a dope.

So we get home, Mimi goes to work and I lay H down. He fought it so hard. At one point, I thought he was asleep because he was being so quiet, but it turns out, he was just being quiet. About thirty minutes went by and I heard his doorknob jiggle. I went to investigate and he's standing at the door, no pants, no pull up, but with wet underwear and wet shorts in one hand, and a handful of wet kleenex in his other hand.

Me: Where is your pull up?
H: In the drawer.
I walk to the drawer and pull out a wet pull up and put it on the floor.
Me: Where are your shorts that I put on you?
H: Over here Mommy.
Me: What happened?
H: I peed on the rug.
Me: You wha...?

I was completely dumbstruck. I had him sit in his chair and I just called Jody right away. 'What do I do?!' He's never ever ever done anything like that. Ever. J suggested that I have him help me clean it up, so I did. Harper had already tried to, hence the wad of wet kleenex in his hand. Jody said H had done this at his place once, and that's what he had him do.

Here's what I think happened: He had already gotten in trouble several times for getting out of bed. I told him that I didn't want to hear him again... to go to sleep. He had to go potty, so instead of telling me he had to go, he went in his pull up, which obviously, is fine. But he didn't want to continue wearing it (can't blame him), so he took it off and instead of getting another pull up, he got out underwear, and thinking his shorts would be wet, too, he got out new shorts. He puts them on, but he still has to potty, and he thinks he can go like he did in his pull up, so he goes. But this time, it gets all over the rug. He knows this isn't good, so he tries to clean it up. When he goes to leave the room, I hear him and walk in right in the middle of the recovery effort.

It makes me more sad than mad. I've decided that from now on, I'm going to put his potty chair in his room during naptime. Then he can get up and go when he needs to.

Also stemming from today is the 'Trouble Box'. I'm so tired of the whining and the back talk, and the open disobedience, that I've decided to start taking stuff away. The rules of the TB are simple. Any back talk, whining, pushing, or disobedience results in one toy going in the TB. It's gone for the rest of the day and he can take it out the next morning. If it goes in at the end of the day, he has to live without it the whole next day, then he can take it out the following morning. Today I started with newest toys first, then I went for the most important one: Thomas. He had five toys taken away from him in two hours today. That's a lot. But it worked. The last toy was taken away at 5:15p and it was Thomas. Boy howdy, he was good after that.