the goodness is gone

As delighted as I was with his behavior up to the arrival of his reward Diesel 10, I was dismayed to see him return to Tantrum Man today. He threw at least six of what I call mini-tantrums, the kind of episode where he scream-whines "NOOOOOO!" when you ask him to do something and then goes completely boneless and lies in the floor. This makes it difficult to scoop him up, but that's what I do. I've been reading that parenting book from the church library that advocates attempting to understand the reason behind the behavior, and each mini-tantrum had me asking him if he felt sad or angry or whatever. By the sixth one, though, he actually earned a swat on the behind. I understand the hysterics at Wal-Mart, though, because he really wanted a toy (despite the fact he'd just gotten Gran to buy him a toy VW bus at the drugstore before we even got to Wal-Mart). I got angry about the three screaming fits when I was trying to get him to leave Uncle Denny's house, though, even though I knew it was because he didn't want to nap and he knew that's where he was headed. He wouldn't even walk across the parking area and kept going limp so that I was practically dragging him instead of holding his hand as he walked. So frustrating.

Today was really an exercise in holding my temper, and I succeeded for the most part. I spanked/swatted him the one time, but I had threatened to do just that and had to follow through to keep my credibility. He's especially been testing me lately to see if I am going to do what I say I'm going to do. So here's the thing that got to me the most: this morning, as he was leaving the bathroom, he locked the door before he closed it. When I had to go, I couldn't get in. It wasn't a tragedy--I just popped a bent wire hanger through the hole and got right in. We had a discussion about NOT locking doors, and he said "yes ma'am" when I asked if he understood. I thought we were done. He did the same thing at the lake just two hours later, and the lake bathroom door has a keyed lock on it (something none of us had ever noticed before). I didn't know he'd done it until he announced the impending arrival of Number Two and we couldn't get into the bathroom. Gran used her insurance card to break in. And we had ANOTHER discussion about locking the door. This time he appeared more contrite.

He kept us in stitches on the drive home, pretending to call Grandma on his chocolate milk bottle. He put his mouth in the opening to talk, and his voice was mostly trapped inside, so he said "help, get me out!" and really got us laughing. Since he loves to make us laugh, he kept on and on, as well as carrying on imaginary phone conversations. He tried to hand the 'phone' to me, and I asked him to just put me on speaker-cup. We had such fun laughing together that it makes up for the times when I get frustrated. The rewards of parenting more than make up for the difficulty!