Seriously, woman. I cannot thank you enough. I quite literally could not have done it without your excellent advice. (And lots of other peoples' generosity too, but that aside...) I may have questions for you on the mortgage side, but hopefully that will go smoothly, too.

Yay! I'm glad I could help!

Did we or did we not make up the word ricockulous? I ask because I just saw it in a TWOP recap, and I'm pretty sure we did it first.

Child discipline! I've done that!

I spent Emmett's 2-3 years giving a timeout a day. Which was nothing like, "Go sit quietly in a corner" and a lot like "I'm standing on this side of your door holding the door shut while you scream like a wounded animal while alternating said screams with pitiable plaintive cries like, 'I want to be a good boy!' such that I felt like all the Dickens villains ever rolled into one."

So. They don't understand causality until they're 2ish. So consequences doesn't mean much before then.

And even then it's just behavior modification, really.

But here's the thing that helped me the most. Emmett's godmother, Karen, told me, "They cry to change their environment. They don't have much agency and that's all they've got. It's not manipulation except in the sense that when you hold something in your hand you're manipulating it."

I found that when I was enforcing boundaries and disciplining Emmett that I focused on behavior, and that I always disciplined in a situation where I could control what was happening (at home, usually).

And by behavior, I just mean very specific rules about how to act: don't throw toys, don't hit, don't break things, don't do [that dangerous thing] etc.

Emmett only ever got timeouts, and the rule of thumb was 1 minute timeout for every year of age. But that the minute didn't start until he stopped yelling. The idea that he was being punished was very upsetting to him but that was sufficient. The actual punishment was only "be quiet in your room for a couple minutes" but around that we had many hours of holleration.

Still, when he got a little older (4+) if he was being a pill about a certain thing I'd look for an opportunity to bust him on it (at home) so it wouldn't be an issue out in the world.

Because one thing that is a deeply ingrained part of Emmett's character is testing. Oh, will he test the boundaries. And even still he will go right up to the very edge of them. But he knows where they are.

Ugh. Parenting is hard. Thanks Hec, I find your post very reassuring.

We just watched The Simpsons Movie. Made me laugh.

I found an article today that mentions that my great-grandfather's first cousin was marginally involved in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case. (After Bruno Hauptman had been sentenced to death, this other guy, Paul Wendel, confessed to having been the real kidnapper. He then denied it and said that he'd been kidnapped and beaten up until he confessed. Anyway, it seems that nobody ever really believed that this guy had done it. My relative testified at the trial that he had seen Wendel with a crying baby the night of the kidnapping.)

Anyway. I googled for a bit more information about the Wendel case. I discovered that the internet is just full of conspiracy theories about the Lindbergh case. (Very few of the internet people seem to believe that Wendel did it, either. But they don't think that Hauptmann did.)

I can't sleep. Do any of you know where I put my copy of Terry Pratchett's "Making Money?" I can't find it because I took the dust cover off and now it's a very unassuming reassuringly thick black book. Of which I have more than one.

It's in that pile by the bookcase.

...Or not.

I read something recently that said children's brains can't really grasp the concept of "the future" until around 3 years old. And even then, their ability to predict the results of their actions is pretty shaky. (Hell, it's shaky for adults.)

I'm having a little trouble grasping my immediate future at the moment, because it involves going out there in the cold while it's still dark. This is not my normal morning. Hence the grasping issues.

OK, here I go...

Hey Good Luck and Congratulations Liese!!