Let the punishments begin!

So, now that my sweet boy is 17 1/2 months old, he thinks he's big enough to do all these big boy things. He did MANY new things today, which I'll write about later, but let's just start with this one. His favorite thing for the last couple of months is to pilfer with our flat screen t.v. He loves getting the remote control and acting like he's going to throw it through the screen. This week he has learned how to actually turn the tv on and off, and he pushed the pause button on the remote today to be able to stop his movie when the doggie came on. Well, we tell him "no" over and over and have tried every thing else to make him realize how dangerous it can be messing with the t.v.

This week he has been especially trying to show off since his Grandy C is here visiting us (Marc's mom). So, today I introduced him to the concept of "time out." He was turning the t.v. on and off and was not listening at all when I was telling him that he was not obeying mommy. I picked him right up and put him in a corner in a hallway by the living room and explained that he was in time out. I told him he did not obey mommy so he had to stand in the corner by himself for a while. I am not even kidding, he did not even move an inch. He stood right there in that corner and just stared at me with the most serious look. He SO knew it meant he was in trouble! He tried to walk away, and I went and picked him right back up and put him back in that corner. He kept looking at me with that same look. I was really proud of the way he stood there. When Marc got home from work we told him the story and he could not believe it. So, we demostrated the "timeout" for him tonight when Mason was naughty with the t.v. once again. Only this time Mason kept running away from the corner and was fussing, I guess thinking daddy would save the day. Little did the little stinker know that Daddy was with Mommy on this one!

We will try this new form of discipline for now on and see how it works. It's actually one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life to see my son standing in that corner just being so good. I thought it would make me sad to punish him, but it really doesn't. It actually is good to see different types of discipline working, because sometimes saying "no" just doesn't cut it.

By the way, a huge shout-out to Brian Petty for teaching me all about putting a child in time-out when I taught Ty's Sunday School class when he was 1 1/2! Brian's my inspiration! Hee hee! :)