What to do, what to do...

I haven't posted here in a while because I have been tinkering with another blog over on wordpress. I can't decide which one I will keep, but I am thinking that it will probably be the wordpress one since it seems a lot more user friendly and I am already a lot less frustrated with trying to make the blog look halfway decent. Plus the templates are nicer. I figure I better make the switch before I get into this too deep to change. The major drawback I see over at wordpress is that they have storage limits for the free account. Which seems to mean, at some point, I will have to delete some of my blog. But I guess I can download it onto my own computer if I really want to keep my old posts.

If anyone has an opinion on which is better and why, please feel free to share your two cents worth.

I'm telling you, the damn snowbank jumped out and bit me, I swear!

I have lived in Wisconsin most of my life (with the exception of a four year stint in NE Iowa for undergrad and a 5 year stint in Missouri for grad school and a job) so you would think that by now, I would know how to pull out of my own freakin' driveway without getting stuck in the snow, wouldn't you?

Well that's exactly what happened to me today. I guess I have gotten soft from this damn global warming. We haven't had snow that deep since 1996, so I guess I forgot that I couldn't just baja through it like usual. The old Taurus just wasn't up for the challenge.

So three strokes and a heart attack later--from trying to dig myself out--I finally threw a massive temper tantrum (I was late for a meeting) and the shovel--setting a horrible example for my four year old. Later I walked him through the "see what happens when you throw a tantrum--you make things worse" scenario. In spite of that, I'm sure I will be dealing with the behavioral fallout from this for weeks to come. Not to mention what the neighbors must think of me now.

I don't think the lady next door will ask us to move our garden shed ever again. So you know, maybe some good will come of this after all.

I'm convinced that my swerving into the snowbank had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was seething mad already from my mother showing up 15 minutes late to watch the younger son, therefore making me late to my meeting. No, I am quite certain that there was some sort of shift in the space time continuum today which caused my driveway to stretch and warp at the precise moment that I was backing down the driveway....yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

I just hope to God the two sheriff's deputies that live right on top of me--one across the street and the other next door (not with the shed lady)--didn't see it. Who knows what the consequences of that would be--oh, wait....that's right, they NEVER work. Their squad cars are always parked in their freakin' driveways (although hubby claims next door neighbor works nights) which makes for excellent crime deterrent--not that we need any in podunk Wisconsin.

My point is that I don't really have a point. I just had a crappy day and thought I would share it with you.

The one redeeming moment was when I got my son out of the car to go back in the house so my mom could get him lunch while I dug the car out (actually hubby wound up doing it--nice hubby, good boy!) and my sweet boy said, "It's o.k. mamma, I'll help you," and went and grabbed the shovel and started trying to dig the car out.

We wound up taking my mom's car and my sweet, under appreciated hubby dug me out when he got home. Thanks, sweetie!

In case anyone is wondering, one of the spell check suggestions for freakin' is "foreskin"---what the___?! I'm too tired to care, so forgive me if my sentence structure and punctuation is all wonky tonight.

Daddy Daycare

I have taken to going in to the office on Saturdays to get the work done that I don't get done at home on days like yesterday. I call these days, Daddy Daycare days.

I can count on getting at least one but usually two or three calls from hubby on these days. Today was no exception.

The first call usually comes about an hour after I leave the house. It usually involves some form of older son telling me he loves me and misses me.

The other calls tend to be of the "when are you coming home" variety....usually accompanied by earsplitting child sound effects in the background.

Today, he pulled a new one on me though. In the grocery store, I received a call regarding poop. The content of the conversation went something like this:

H: "So what do I do? Older son pooped in his pull-up, but just a little bit. Then he went in the potty". (The rest of his question, from which I will spare you, involved a description of the aforementioned poops and the locations and timings of them).

Me: "Well what I did last time, was tell him that if he finished pooping in the potty, I wouldn't take any toys away, but he won't earn any of the others back since he went some in his pull-up". (envision me in the grocery store, surrounded by unsuspecting shoppers just trying to figure out what hamburger helper to have for dinner, trying to avoid saying this loud enough to make anyone lose their appetite but loud enough for hubby at the other end of the cell to understand).

H: "O.k. then, I won't take any toys away, but he doesn't earn back any of his others....When are you coming home? You were stopping for pizza and milk. It takes you 20 minutes to get pizza and milk?"

Me: "I'm heading to the checkout." (I'm really not, but he doesn't need to know this).

I received two more calls before I got home.

You may be wondering why we need to have a summit meeting every time our child poops. The answer is this, my dear hubby is (he will deny this to the death) too tender hearted to have any semblance of authority on certain issues. If left to him, the task of poopy training our four (yes, four) year old would never happen and I would be changing poopy pull-ups until he was 18.

I love my husband, but he thinks that the sun rises and sets with our four year old and does not believe that the fact that our son is still not completely potty trained is a control issue. Therefore, I issued a moratorium on him making any decisions regarding this issue without consulting me first. Older son was manipulating daddy dearest.

The thing is this, older son has an uncanny knack for figuring out the loopholes. First we tried a reward chart for the pee training. This didn't really work too well.

The only times he peed in the potty were when he wanted to earn a new train and then he would sometimes go three times in an hour to get enough stickers to go to Came-apart for a new Thomas engine. He managed to get pretty much the entire fleet before we figured out what he was doing.

Outsmarted by a four year old.

So then he finally was trained when we caught on and told him "no more new toys" until he kept his pull-ups dry for a week. Then we stretched it to a month and so-on.

When we decided it was time to push the poopy training issue, we thought we were wiser. This time, we gave him a warning (mind you, he had taken to going off to his room to hide when he was going to poop and then returning to announce that he had done it and ask for a clean pull-up--also, he never goes at daycare--so we knew that he should be able to use the potty every time).

The warning was that if he pooped in his pull-up, we would take all of his trains and all of his cars. Of course he didn't believe me, so when they were taken away the first time, there was quite the drama.

We told him he could earn them back by pooping in the potty. One train and one car, each time. So he pooped in the potty, one little ball and there we were. We hadn't specified how much he had to poop to get the cars and trains. Damnit!!! Outsmarted again.

Rule change: Now he has to poop it all in the potty to get the trains and cars. If he poops any in his pull-up, we take away the cars and trains he has earned back. So now, he poops a litte in the pull-up and then the rest in the potty. Son of a....

Who knew that parenting would be rocket science...er, poopy science.

There's no place like home...

Snowed in today, there wasn't much going on. The boys were playing in the living room (and by playing, I mean, beating the everloving snot out of each other).

My one year old (just turned one on the 22nd of Feb.) has learned to deftly defend himself by mimicking everthing his older brother does--shoving, slapping, pinching, poking and recently added a new one......biting! He's not very big, but he has been walking since he was 8 1/2 months old, so his balance is every bit as good as his brother's and he is climbing everything in sight.

Apparently, the younger, had turned over the plastic toy bin and was busy standing on it to try to reach the buttons on the dvd player on the top of the entertainment center. Older child decides that it is his job to put a stop to this and does so by pushing younger brother off of the bin.

I hear a loud crash followed by earsplitting wails. He's o.k. but youngest son now has a few less IQ points and four (yes, four) bumps and bruises on his head. He must have done a barrel roll on the way down and managed to bump his head four times from left to right.

That was the pinnacle of my day.

Sidebar: I know you must think I am crazy leaving them alone together, but (1) they are really not alone since my computer is just around the corner in the office area and all I have to do is lean back in my chair to see what is going on and (2) I don't have a lot of choice since I work from home several days a week.

Earlier in the day, I was working on the computer when I came to a slow realization that it was much too quiet in the living room.....

My panic rising, wondering if the older was smothering the younger or some other such horror (I always enjoy leaping to the fatal conclusion), I stifle my panic and calmly call out to the older, "Hey buddy, what's going on in there?"

As I lean back and look, I see my older child sitting watching t.v. and the younger is nowhere in sight. My older son turns and looks at me, shrugs his shoulders and goes back to playing with his Thomas trains and watching his show. At the same time, my peripheral vision alarm bells are going off because something is not right in the corner of my eye.

Aaaaaawwww, crrrrap! The bathroom door is open.

My four year old is still having issues with potty training (it's really a control issue but that is for another post) so we keep it shut to keep the younger out while still leaving access for the older. But apparently, older son has left the door open. (I secretly believe he did this on purpose, just to make me miserable).

As I am vaulting the baby gate into the living room, I see the younger, placidly sitting on the floor in front of the freshly used potty---enjoying swishing his brother's underpants and a sock in what, I can only imagine, he thinks is his newly discovered "pond". I run to pick him up before he decides to sample the "water" and as I do---I feel the unpleasant sensation of wet sleeper in my hands and discover (too late to do anything about it) that my clothes are getting wet as well.

Needless to say, I stripped him naked and put him straight into the bathtub. So much for starting dinner on time.

And my husband wonders why some days I don't get anything done.

Meltdown!!!

So last night, my four year old was sent to the naughty chair for spitting at hubby (can any of you imagine spitting at your parents when you were a kid?) .

What ensued was a meltdown that rivaled any I have seen on those Nanny rescue shows. There was screaming...scratch that...SHRIEKING, tears, grunts, yelling, jiggling (that's the best way to describe the boppy up and down thing he was doing with his body while he was sitting on his knees), flailing and sobbing.

I was left to monitor this spectacle, while hubby went to young son's room to pack up all his Thomas play sets (the Island of Sodor is no more). Of course, my son knew what was going on in his bedroom which just enraged him all the more. It practically sent him into convulsions.

I have to say...I was flabbergasted. Shouldn't he be outgrowing this kind of thing by now? I mean, what happened to my sweet little peanut?

Hubby and I have tried to avoid the spanking thing, but I gotta tell ya, the naughty chair does not seem to be working. We are working on our consistency with it, which is part of the problem. We have also utilized taking toys and t.v. privileges away. Nothing seems to have much of an effect for very long. He has recently taken to saying, "That's o.k. It doesn't matter." And that's about how effective the naughty chair is too.

Now, I realize that the common wisdom is that spanking only teaches that hitting is o.k. Which I agree with, to a point. But hubby and I were both spanked as kids and neither one of us is walking around hitting our co-workers or random people on the street that tork us off. Also, I'm happy to say, neither of us has spent any time in jail for anything.

We both grew up respecting our elders and authority. We don't steal, we don't drive drunk, we don't get into bar fights, we don't (frankly) even go to bars. We don't hate our parents, we have never killed anyone, we don't own any guns (oh, God, I should probably delete that or I'm sure the NRA will manage to get me fired from my job somehow: http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070225/COLUMNISTS19/702250326), we don't flip people off when we drive, we don't curse (not in front of the kids anyway--appropriate time and place, you know). We pay our taxes--without cheating, we own our home, we go to work and do our jobs, we have insurance, we mow our lawn, pick up our trash and try to be good neighbors.

Given all that, how bad can an appropriate use of spanking be? I believe there is a difference between beating or abusing a child and spanking a child. I was only spanked a few times, the rules about what got you spanked were clear. All it took was a time or two and the mere threat of being spanked, kept me in line. But the spankings that I received were calm, methodical punishments, not random beatings done in a fit of anger. So I see a clear distinction.

Fortunately or unfortunately, spanking is a taboo in this country now. Parents fear that their kids will be taken away for being abused if they spank and therefore, kids rule the roost. Since I work with kids and have often been to people's homes for interviews, I have been given the unique privilege of observing, firsthand, how this fear has affected some families.

I watch those Nanny shows and would love to see how things are going a year later when the parents and kids have reverted to their old habits (notice that they don't seem to do any of those follow-up shows). We learn patterns from our own history and those patterns are hard to break, I think.

What I see in my line of work, is that many parents don't discipline their kids at all. Using effective discipline is hard work and it's difficult to be consistent--which is essential for things like a "naughty chair" to work correctly. Since parents are afraid to use spanking or don't want to deal with the hard work of discipline, they just don't do anything and their kids don't respect them and walk all over them.

The end result for our children...for the generation who will be taking care of us and running our country in 20-30 years? Their parents don't know what to do with them, the schools don't know what to do with them and so they send them off to a psychiatrist who puts them on meds.

Now don't go gettin' all bent out of shape. I am not suggesting that some children don't need medication for legitimate illnesses. I am also not suggesting that corporal punishment will solve childhood mental illness. I am merely suggesting that preventing out of control kids begins at home with good, consistent discipline practices.

I am not a psychiatrist and I am not licensed in any way. So don't go taking my opinion for anything other than what it is--my opinion. My undergraduate schooling is in psychology, my master's education is in counseling, so I am not a complete idiot in this area, but I am far from an expert. I am also not endorsing child abuse or spanking as the way to discipline a child--I just want to be clear on that.

I am simply pondering my current situation and wondering...what happens now? What do I do with my out of control four year old? Am I doomed to have him beating the crap out of me when he is five (like one child I saw on one of those Nanny shows)?

If I did decide to spank him when--for example--he has body slammed his one year old brother to the floor for the 3rd time and spent most of his day in the naughty chair, and no longer has any toys or privileges to lose, do I have to fear that a social worker will be knocking at my door?

So now, I am left not knowing what to do. I bet I'm not alone--as the success of the Nanny shows suggests.

Now where did I put that Nanny show number?......