I don't believe in spanking, I don't think it accomplishes anything. However, Doug was thisclose to a spanking yesterday. Recently I've begun letting Doug out of the grocery cart with me when I go shopping, provided he doesn't take off and run away. The last few trips to the store he's been very good, staying with me and helping me put things into the cart. We've had a lot of fun by having Doug help us find and count produce. In general the trip is less of a headache because he's not screaming to get out or running away from me.
So yesterday we went to Target and he was walking with me and helping me load the cart. After that we had to go to the grocery store. He wanted to get out and walk next to me and because he'd been so good, I was ok with that. We went up a few aisles, got some produce and then went to the condiment aisle. I was looking for some individual packs of ranch dressing for Jeff's lunch and Doug was roaming up and down the aisle looking at bottles of 'dip'. I then heard a rattling sound and realized that the bottle Doug had just picked up was glass. I very calmly told him to put it down as I walked toward him. He smirked, held the bottle over his head with both hands, and threw it with all of his toddler might. Glass and bbq sauce everywhere! I was shocked and absolutely horrified. To Doug's credit, he was pretty shocked too. I'm sure that he didn't know that the bottle would break. I don't remember what I said to him ( I was still in shock) but it was something along the lines of "you are in SOOO much trouble and there will be a serious time out when we get home!". I plopped him back in the cart and went to find an employee to alert about the mess*. Several minutes later I brought Doug back to the aisle to show him that some one else had to clean up his mess. For the rest of the trip, Doug was pretty subdued. He wasn't dancing to the in store music anymore or pointing out things he knew the words for. He mostly just calmly sat in the cart.
I usually give time outs right after the offense, otherwise Doug is unlikely to remember what he's in time out for. But a time out in the store isn't quite as effective as one at home and I thought this deserved a good one. When we got home I put him in his crib, his designated time out place and he began to jump in his crib, clearly enjoying himself. I realized that the crib no longer has the desired time out effect, so I had to come up with something fast. I realized that I could strap him into his highchair and put him in the middle of the dining room, which ended up working out nicely. After his three minutes, I talked to him about what he did and why it wasn't a nice thing to do. I have no idea how much, if any of it sank into him. He was rather exceptionally good the rest of the day, possibly because I told him that I don't take naughty boys to see GG (my grandmother) and he'd been talking about going over there all day long.
I was really glad that there weren't any witnesses to the 'Great Bbq Chucking' of '12. Had I seen that, my first thought would have been 'Wow, what a brat!'. And there was definitely some part of my mind that thought that. I know that the incident was pretty extreme for Doug. He did only intend to throw the bottle, not shatter it and make a huge mess. I may laugh about it at some point, just not this week.
On another completely unrelated note, I got yelled at by a door to door salesperson yesterday. It had happened shortly after I debriefed Doug on his time out. The doorbell rang and Doug started screaming, which is unusual (the screaming and the doorbell). Typically when the bell rings, we're expecting some one and I tell Doug that so and so will be over and he's all cool with that. So after calming down a freaked out toddler, I looked out my window and saw a young woman who didn't appear to have anything identifying her with any company. I thought that she could be a neighbor, so I opened the door. She then launched into some sort of spiel. I very politely, but firmly asked if she had seen my sign.
A quick word about my sign. The first month we moved into this house, we were getting solicitors at our door a couple of times in a week. I don't buy stuff from people going door to door. I don't give donations to people going door to door. I don't join new religions of people going door to door. I just don't do it. If some one is an obvious solicitor, I don't even open my door. So we got this lovely plaque for our mailbox, which sits right next to the door frame. It's bright red and says "NO SOLICITING!". Best three dollars I ever spent at Home Depot. All of our friends and family who've visited our house have noticed it. We had trouble on Halloween with parents not sure if it was ok to ring our bell. So basically, what I'm saying is that people notice the sign.
Anyway, back to my lovely saleslady. She said, very rudely, "Now why would I look at your mailbox?! You should put it on your door!!!" Again, the sign is about 3 inches from the door bell. I shrugged, said 'No thank you' and closed the door on her face. There were a lot of things I could have said but didn't. Like, 'Oh, I'm sorry you aren't able to read" or "Wow, I know soliciting is a pretty big word, do you know what it means?". Sigh.
Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest!
*I admit that I told the employee that Doug had dropped the bottle, not pitched it with all his might. It's also not a store we go to often. Or will probably go back to for a while...
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