Saturday, December 27, 2008

The week leading up to Christmas!

For most little boys and girls the week leading up to Christmas is full of excitement and good behavior. Santa is making the final touches to his "Naughty or Nice list" and you want to make sure you on on the "Nice" list. For some reason Caleb did not get the memo. Monday started a long train of "Naughty" choices.

#1. Caleb took Andy's mom's Christmas present (BUBBLE BATH) and dumped out the entire bottle on Ainsley head. It was in her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.

#2. Caleb broke my ipod...while I was trying to fix it (calling Steff and Seth) he opened Aubrey's Christmas present (6 barbies).

#3 Caleb tore apart his nice dresser, taking out all the newly folded clothes, un-screwing all the nobs of his dresser, and he threw the nobs and screws in different directions throughout his room.
#4 Since markers, crayons, and other writting utincils are hidden very well Caleb took the heal of Aubrey's new high heal shoes and colored on his wall. How did he think to do that?

#5 Red Nail Polish....on my couch. The same exact couch cussion that I had aready flipped over because he colored the other side with a yellow crayon. A scene from the Clark favorit movie CLIFFORD ran through my head....IS THERE NO END TO CALEB'S MADNESS!!!

I would like to say that I do not leave him alone unsupervised for long periods of time...usually only while I am cleaning the kitchen. I usually dress him in swooshy pants so that I can always hear him.
Anyway, after the nail polish accident I really feel that the age of acountablity should be 3. He even said "Mom, it wasn't an accident. I did it on purpose!"
My new goal was to increase time out from 3 minutes to 30 minutes and I was going to try and let him do fun/supervised activities that he normally wouldn't be aloud to do.Activity #1 let Caleb make sugar cookies all by himself. Tell him what to do and give him the correct measuring utisiles. It worked out really well and he was able to consentrate long enough!
#2 Let Caleb use sizzors. I showed him how to make a snow flake! He really didn't care for the cutting and didn't understand what was going on until I showed him he could open it.He thought that was really COOL!
**As punishment for the nail polish he had to keep it on...on the days getting closer to Christmas he was very worried that Santa would think he was a girl and bring him Barbies instead of a trampoline. I finally took it off after 4 days.Then I let Caleb and Ainsley paint on Calebs wall with washable water paint. I was surprised at how carefull Caleb was. I thought he would go right at it and make a mess.
Ainsley was just excited that she got to participate!

The final activity was using permanent markers for an activity book.
When all was said and done, he still didn't take an afternoon nap, but he was really good and "accident" free for the rest of the day!

1 comment:

The Batemans said...

Little Turkey! Camden is only 1 and already a huge mess maker. I can only wait until his is 3!