Love Thursday – The Blitz

It's tough to discipline this love bug!

Oh yes, we call him the Blitz.  He uses his heat seeking powers to finding the only clean room in the house, run straight to it, and leave it in a disheveled heap in only moments.  And yet, we adore him.

He has a terrible temper and doesn’t seem to know he’s one of 5 children; at 3 years old, he alone is the center of the universe.  Yet this bundle of tantrumming trial is also the biggest love-bug in the place.  Several times a day he says, “Mommy, I love you.”  A snack or a drink or a regular meal is met with “Thank you” in a tone that implies something completely unearned and unexpected has been gifted him.  Any time I leave the room for 5 minutes to fold a load of clothes or make a bed, he is right there saying, “Mommy, I was missing you.”

So you can see the conundrum.  It is so, so hard to discipline anyone so cute.  He lets me sing him special songs that include his name; he still needs every owie kissed by Mommy (and no one else.)  He is always near to keep me company and mine is the name he calls when he has a bad dream or gets his “fee-wings” hurt.

Yet, I know I must.  I don’t want him (in only two, too-short years) to be the only Kindergartner flailing about on the floor and screaming when the teacher says it’s time to go to the circle.  None of the tricks I used with the “Bigs” have worked on this little guy.  You cannot trick or distract him out of a close-at-hand tantrum.

So I’ve done what millions of parents before me have done:  I’ve resorted to “incentive’s,” aka bribery.  I don’t agree on it in principal, but it’s the only thing that seems to work.  It’s a little bribe, as bribes go.  Each day that he does not have a fit, he gets to put a little animal sticker on my calendar.  Some days just mentioning “sticker” is enough to steer a tantrum into a quick, quiet float to the tile.  Other days, like today, it just doesn’t work.

I don’t have any answers here — after all, it’s a Love Thursday post, not an advice column.  But this I do know, naughty or not — he’s my sweet little tot!