| Day one of babysitting ended without incident. Just one day left, but it might be a long one. If we're lucky the strategy we hit upon today will work tomorrow. Toward the end of the babysitting day, I took the kid (we only had the little brother today; they'll both be here tomorrow) to our apartment's playground. It really seems like a no-brainer, but we're not outdoors types, so it's the type of idea that has us go, "Uhhh...how about we do something inside instead?"
But the point is, he played around for a little while, then we came back inside and he was a lot more interested in watching TV than he had been all day. It just goes to show the importance of not forgetting to let the kids "get the wiggles out." Wear them out, and everything else will be so much easier.
We did give him a time-out once. I had taken him out to get the mail with me, and when we got back, he didn't want to come inside. So I told him to give the mail to Athena and I'd take him back to the playground. He was extremely opposed to this idea for some reason, and hovered around the front door, adamantly not handing over the letter. We gave him a warning, counted to five, and since there was still no obedience, it was time for a time out.
This is where we prove to be perhaps a little sadistic. The time-out was kind of fun. It probably helped that he didn't scream or act betrayed (much). He did keep trying to push his boundaries, so I had to keep putting him back in his spot and start the time-out all over again, so what could have been over in two minutes stretched to about ten. But I kind of like to prove to children that I can beat them in a battle of wills. ...Very mature, I am.
But now it's time to enjoy our evening of non-babysitting.
Today I'm thankful for the babysitting going fairly well, learning that our grocery store now officially carries the cocoa and salted caramel Planters peanuts, our apartment having a playground, learning that we still have some molten chocolate chocolate chip cookies to enjoy, and having time to play Kingdom Hearts tonight. |
