What a week. Four days trapped in the house by sick kids and torrential rain followed by three debauched days in Brighton on a Hen do. I'm bloody knackered, even more so than usual. Now, Finn and I don't do too well when either of us is over-tired so there has been the odd stand off of late, which leads me to this week's topic; discipline.
My style of parenting is either bodged from what I can remember off Super Nanny, or copied from the other mothers in my NCT group. But, now that Finn is well past his second birthday, I'm running out of excuses for his boisterous behaviour and none of the above is working. Before I launch into some of his finer moments, I'd just like to say that he's a good kid really, he's not malicious or spiteful. If anything he's overly friendly in a Lenny type manner that often sees him pulling small children to the floor shouting 'CUDDLE, CUDDLE'. I think it's cute, sadly many parents of said small children disagree.
The main problem that we have is his refusal to follow directions...of any description...ever. From 'please don't post mummy's wedding rings down the plug hole' to 'don't eat the play-doh' (every single week at playgroup) to my personal favourite 'don't climb out of your pram onto the doctor's computer desk while I'm having this invasive examination', if Finn wants to do something, he's pretty much going to do it. Most of it is harmless exploring but every now and again he crosses a line and something must be done.
Yesterday, was one such example. Joey took a tumble trying to reach a toy on his play mat, he banged his head on Buzz Lightyear and had a good old cry. I gave him a dummy and reinstalled him on the mat. Finn hasn't had a dummy since his first birthday but lately has become obsessed by them. So as soon as I turned my back, he pinched it and Joey was crying again. I took it away and gave it back to Joey. Now repeat the last two sentences a hundred times. And then he got really mad and threw a toy, which hit me in the shin.
I'd given him a warning and now it was time for action. Supreme punishment of two minutes, alone in the front hallway. It didn't work. He played with the post, he pulled at threads in the carpet, he broke the zipper on his trousers. When I opened the door and asked him to apologise, he said 'No way, no way!'. Cue two more minutes in the hallway. Now repeat the last two sentences a hundred times.
After about twenty minutes, he was crying hysterically and I was on the verge of joining in when he finally, and very begrudgingly, uttered 'Sowee Mama'. We had a cuddle and I inwardly breathed a massive sigh of relief at my victory. Ten minutes later he'd stolen the dummy again - this time I did cry. If anyone has any advice on training toddlers, I'd love to hear it.
In other excellent news, I put on weight this week. Actually it's not too bad, because as I said, I went to a Hen do and drank my weight in Blue WKD (I don't know why) so I guess it could have been worse. One thing I am proud of is that despite knowing I was going away, I stuck to healthy eating before hand. The old me would have been all... 'well I can't diet this weekend so I'll just eat myself stupid all week and then start again on Monday'.
I'm aiming for 1200 calories a day and using a free app called My Fitness Pal. It requires quite a lot of forward planning to make sure that I don't eat my limit by the time I get to my evening meal but it makes me think twice about every single thing I eat, which can't be a bad thing. I hope to have more positive results next week.
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