ancora imparo

AJ had a bad evening. When I picked him up from school, he started by telling me he was hungry. He only had “some lunch” and “a little bit of snack” and he needed another snack. I checked in with John and decided to feed AJ dinner early and I would wait to eat with John. AJ finished his main dinner (biscuit and gravy) and wanted a piece of candy. He came back with a piece in his mouth and a roll of smarties that he wanted to eat too. I told him maybe later since he already had candy in his mouth. He got huffy but eventually asked for more dinner or “something else”. I told him he could have carrots or fruit. He ended up having a pudding cup. Then he wanted the candy again. Still no. He could have some fruit when Daddy and Mommy had their dinner. We had a total meltdown.

I put him on the naughty step and he continued to squawk. I told him that he could settle down or go up to his room. He was getting close to calming down and I suggested he go get his jammies on which started a fresh bout of screaming and wailing. I went over to take him up to his room until he calmed down and he had his arms wrapped tight against his body in case I was going to pick him up or give him a swat. I told him I wasn’t but that didn’t seem to matter. We went upstairs and I put him on his bed. I told him that he could stay there until he calmed down, then I wanted him to get on his jammies and he could come back downstairs. Crying and squawking continued. I called up and asked if he wanted the neighbor to call the police…he got a little quieter, but not much. When John got home, he asked what happened, I gave him a quick synopsis and he went up to check on AJ. He’d thrown a few things around his room, which I told him he would lose if he did that. When he was calmed down, I went up to change Zoe and picked up the items he’d thrown. He’s so darn honest that he helped me find the other things he’d thrown.

He changed into jammies and came down to eat his fruit while John and I had dinner. (Zoe ate while he was upstairs having a fit.) We all sat at the table—Zoe had sweet potato puffs, AJ had his mandarin oranges and we ate our leftover biscuits and gravy.

After that, it was time for early bedtime. AJ went relatively easily, bathroom, wash face, take vitamin, brush teeth, book, prayers, kisses and lights out. He really wanted a second book but he didn’t manage to convince me. While I was up there, John was calling up “Kim, as soon as you’re done you need to come down and see this!”

When I got downstairs, I found Zoe on the couch rolling from her back to her tummy reaching for her bottle. Apparently we found the right carrot finally! So the evening ended on an “up” as Zoe makes one of those missed milestones finally!

For a variety of reasons, I decided to use my blogger blog for my school library learning posts so I transfered everything there earlier this evening and did one more post and signed up for the project through the CSLA website since I wasn’t allowed to be in on the PSLA one this spring.