Time out

My husband and I tend to be a little more lenient  with our grandson then his mother. We don't put him in time out very much. The major offenses are picking on 1 of our 2 Westies or hitting us. When he won't stop either activity he is told he now has to to into the corner for time out. On the way to the corner he gets teary eyed and says, " I am sorry, I am sorry." When he gets in the corner he cries and my shout at us or sit on the floor and move his legs back and forth. If we try and talk with him he shouts,"don't talk to me." The part of this entire process I find most interesting is that he is personally offended we put him in time out and it made him cry.It is not that we are mad at him or he hurt one of the dogs (for whom he shows warm affection for 95% of the time ), or that he is missing out on some other activity. He is 3 years old and stay in time out for 1 to 3 minutes. When the time is up I offer to comfort him . He say no and won't leave the corner. The time outs seem to help. I  now just say that the corner is still there and I don't want to make him cry. He will stop what he is doing.

the dead cricket

I came out of the back door and Brandon walked up to me with his hands on his hips and then thrust them out to the side saying," O well the cricket died in the pool and I burried him in ther garden but I didn't say a prayer."

having mouth washed out wih soap.

I can't ever envision that my grandson will have his mouth washed out with soap but he loves to have me tell him what happened to me. "tell me the story of soap in your mouth."And once again with the telling I connect with my childhood. It was my mother's expectation that when she called me I would come home right away. This particular summer evening ,I was 8 or 9 years old and was playing playing kick the can with my friends on the next block over from my house. I heard my mother call me but didn't want to stop playing. I figured when I got home I would just tell her I didn't hear her because I was so far away. Well, she kept calling and I finally decided to go home. When I got home she said'" where have you been." I gave her my excuse but she didn't buy it and told me to go up to the bathroom. Up there she proceed to push a bar of soap into my teeth. It tasted awful and it took hours to get the the taste out of my mouth. I never did that again.. When I tell Brandon the story he thinks it is so funny and wants me to repeat it again.

fall with a bumped head

Brandon slipped off the bathtub and bumped his head coming to me for comfort. While sitting on my lap I asked if he would like to ice on his head and he said yes. I put an ice cub on his head thinking he was not seriously hurt. Quickly he looked up at me and said, "I have a better idea." He went into the bathroom, got a wash cloth, wrapped an ice cub in it and put it on his head and sat on my lap again. I smiled and said,"yes that is a better idea."

humpty dumpty

Brandon is now 4 years old

I am not sure why I started saying the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme but my grandson loves to repeat it. He  is now putting a new twist on humpty's recovery. Brandon's plan is to pick him up and put him back together again doing a better job than all the king's horses and all the kings men.

books and stories

   Our grandson spends a lot of time with us. His parents are now divorced and his mother is a police officer who has to be at work at 6:30am. He either spends the nite with us or she brings him here at 6am. When he spends the nite, before he goes to sleep I read him 2 books that he (most of the time) selects and then I have to tell him a story. Topics of the stories have to be cars- corvetts and mustangs, motorcycles- suzukies, or snakes. When he arrives  at 6am, he requests a book but I tell him it is too early. I suggest a story and that is OK with him. The nice thing for me is that he falls asleep before he hears the story so I can tell it again. The main character of each story is either a little boy or a young man. He does not have a name but my grandson know he is that character.

it finally happened

My grandson will be 4 in October. As of a month ago he was not toilet trained for stool much to the worry of me, his mother, grandpa and his other grandma. He had a few successes but it didn't last. He has too many gagets for my liking and each was taken away until he could have a BM in the toilet. He also had 2 remote controlled cars that he could not use until then. Part of me was pleased that he couldn't use all those devices. Part of me was worried about how long it would take him to use the toilet. He didn't even seem to care that he couldn't play, his DS, Wii or xbox- all provided by his parents. On several occassions he would ask to use something but when we said no he went to play with something else.
   He always seemed to know when he would have a BM as he would stand in the corner of the den and poop telling us to stay away from him. We would urge him to use the potty but he said no. Once he was urine trained he came out of pullups but would poop in his pants. He would clean himself and put clean pants on. During this time we all backed off and when he told us he had to go poop we said OK and all went about our business. Then 1 day when we were away he pooped in the potty and hasn't looked back.
He rermains so very proud of himself as well he should. Each poop is announced and praised.