Well, we survived! Mac went back to work Friday night and we all lived to tell the tale of his leave time off with us. I love him, goddess knows I do, but I can not take him home all the time with Nixon. He wants Nixon to do exactly as he says. Nixon wants to do exactly what he's used to doing with me which is (unless he's really doing something wrong) pretty much whatever. I'm far more comfortable letting Nixon do his own thing than Mac is. It's a battle of the wills with them and I just get tired of picking sides. And it boils down to picking sides...all the damned time. Sometimes I have to back Mac up because, well he made a parental call and I have to respect that. Sometimes he's just being a dick and I have to call him on that too! Honestly, by the time the weekend hit I was ready for a day off!
But we all made it through. We even had a "fun" family date. Fun is in quotes because I didn't pay attention to the directions very well and we spent 30 more minutes in the car than we needed too and we ran into the rudest group of locals ever and almost puked at one of the exhibits from the rank stench of stagnant water. The plus side to the date was: Nixon had a ball making his very first video/documentary of our day. He had fun feeding birds with me and getting visited by butterflies. We let him lead where we went and he just ate up the experience!
And like any other child his age, tantrums are more elaborate now! We get the whole body thrown to the ground, the blood curdling screams of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!", and he's started (only once so far) scratching at my face. **Now I don't know the exact proper way to handle this and it caught me totally off guard. I was wearing my wrist brace at the time, so I'm pretty limited on options and really shouldn't have been carrying him in the first place, but since he dropped on his belly in the middle of the parking lot, I had no real option. I picked him up and continued to the car...which led to the attempted face scratching. I grabbed his wrists with my good hand and tucked them into my armpit and kind of hugged them there, while talking into his ear telling him scratching mommy hurts me and makes me sad. I don't know if it helped or not, but I really had tears welling up in my eyes as I told him this.....which was just as we got to the car. Nixon gave me a kiss and said "I sorry mommy, don cry".**
We've also been spending more time in Time Out. He still knows that when I get up and ask for his hand, he gives me his hand and we walk to T.O together. He sits on the newly painted T.O mat and will read the letters off of the mat. Sometimes he cries sometimes he just sits there.
Tonight before dinner he was being a real punk. Kept screaming at the cat! Like chasing her, getting right behind her, then yelling at her! I gave him one warning, two warnings, and before the third warning I brought him over to his bedroom for something and I saw him get ready to chase the cat again so I *snap* my finger and point in the direction of the T.O mat.....NOT to put him there but as a reminder that *IF* he does chase the cat a 3rd time he *WILL* got into T.O. Well....he gets hysterical, throws himself onto the T.O mat and sits there crying his little heart out!!! I have to get down on the floor with him, pick him up into my arms and apologize to him because I DID NOT send him to time out but was just reminding him if he chased the cat that was where he was going!! But damned if I wasn't just a little impressed that he got into T.O. without me saying a fucking word to him!!
He calmed down after a couple minutes (and did not chase the cat again for the rest of the night!) and we enjoyed some more snuggles!
Tomorrow, because the heat's finally breaking here on Okinawa, we're hitting the zoo while Mac sleeps.
Oh yeah, the wrist brace I mentioned...it's because I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. I get to sleep with it on every night for 6 weeks.
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