Speaking of storms

Since the kids have returned from the holy land, Levi and Noah have been having... issues. Especially Levi. Bedtime has been a nightmare, with wailing and gnashing of teeth for over an hour, as one of us sits outside the bedroom so that they don't tunnel out of Alcatraz. The other night, Levi spent the entire dinnertime crying because he didn't want to eat one tiny piece of BBQ beef. He didn't choke it down until after the other two kids were slurping on their Otter Pops (and even then only after Paige washed the BBQ sauce off of it.) Then he sat on the floor sobbing, holding his melting tube of sugary ice, because I cut the top off without him. Eventually the untouched Otter Pop was pried from his hands and thrown in the trash because it was time to go to bed. That, of course, caused an eruption of even greater wailing. He did not have a good night, but it was all caused by his own stubbornness.

Paige decided that they might go to bed better at night if we started skipping naps. Last night was fairly successful. Levi was asleep before I finished half a page in This Old House, and Noah didn't make a peep until he fell asleep 30 minutes later. Tonight I got home from work to find Levi already passed out on the couch, a full 2 hours before bedtime.

(Underwear strategically repositioned from their original location around his ankles)

Since he couldn't very well go to bed at 5:30, we woke him up. In hindsight, we should have just let him sleep. Tonight he refused to wash his hands so he could stir the waffle batter (refer to position of left hand in above picture.) So Noah got to do all the stirring. All the kid had to do was scrub his hands, and we would have gladly let him stir some batter. But he was just plain bull-headed, and refused. It wasn't pretty...

(We'll look back on this some day and chuckle... I hope)

We've tried everything. Reasoning, spanking, time-outs, bribing. Nothing works. He will refuse to cooperate, even if it means missing out on an Otter Pop or batter stirring. The only thing that seemed to work was Benadryl one night during a 4 AM meltdown, but frequent use of that method and child protective services will be knocking on our door.

Ideas? Solutions? Help? Anyone?


At least one of them around here will still smile at me...