Our weekend has been eventful and we never left home. Evan decided Saturday that he was completely potty trained. He has worn underwear all weekend and not had 1 accident. He tells a grown up every time he needs to "go potty on spider man". His potty lid for the toilet is spider man. Otherwise that sounds really odd. But then a lot of the things I say here are odd. For instance at bedtime Carter was having trouble getting to his room and I heard myself say, "get that box off of your head and get in that bed now." Nan was standing right there and pointed out that we say odd things here which are completely applicable to the situation.
I have always loved the movie Raising Arizona with Nicolas Cage. At one point in the movie the whack-o friend with 5 kids says in mid sentence to the main character, "you take that diaper off of your head and you put it back on to your sister!" Our life is a little like that at times.
Speaking of Carter, he has not done well this weekend. He lost computer privilege because of how he behaved (or didn't) at the restaurant Thursday night. He refused to adhere to the restriction and got on the computer anyway so the deal was he lost it for a whole week and not just one night. I knew how difficult that would be to enforce with Carter but I felt like it was the thing to do because he really needed a reminder that parents are in charge and he has to obey.
Saturday we had made plans to paint the boys room. It would seem that the combination of disruption in his routine with loss of computer and the fumes from the paint led to a torrential melt down mega tantrum. It was not pretty.
He did better Sunday but was still struggling behavior wise. Maylene had a tantrum Sunday. She had been doing really well all day and then snapped. It was time to get ready to go. Did not want to get ready. Blah blah blah ... lots of tantrum style screaming and door slamming, open and then slam, open and then slam, stuff falls off the walls, etc. BUT, she stayed in her room on her own. No one told her to go to her room or stay in her room she did it on her own. So even though her behavior was really stinky she had a measure of control that we were not seeing a few months ago. Progress. That's what I try to keep reminding myself. Raising children is a process and we don't get there all at once.
Evan will not be 3 until May yet he will go to the time out spot on his own when he is told to and stay for 2 minutes while he waits for the timer to ding. He is by far our most laid back "easy" child. They are all such individuals. Vivian was absolutely perfect on Saturday. She spent hours in her room making a craft book. But other days she is the moody kid who's whole life is not going her way.
At any rate I am happy to be able to report that things are still going relatively well here in loo-loo land.
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