Vicki and I lose our tempers with Griff sometimes. Sometimes he's just crazy. Sometimes, like saturday morning, he starts off whiny and it just gets worse.
Vicki woke up early and thought it would be nice to take Griff to Starbucks for a little mommy/son time. His clothes weren't laid out so he had to get some from the dresser and that set it off. He wanted the shirt that was in the laundry. He didn't want to get dressed. He didn't want to go to Starbucks. Well, so he said in his whiniest voice, which is a pet peeve for both Vicki and I. After some threats to leave without him, Vicki left without him (good move sweet angel!). I got out of bed and tried to be calm. He finally got dressed and cleaned up his trains so that he could come down for breakfast....45 minutes after Vicki went in there. I thought i was going to keep it together. Three whiny comments into breakfast, I did not. "But I don't want honey bunches of oats" (total BS - he loves them). Now it was time for me to follow through on my anti-whining threat. Upstairs with screaming kid on shoulders. Place him in bed. Walk away. It was a new record in frustrated parenting. Both of us in under an hour.
We turned it around. After Vicki left for girls day out, he went for another time out. I told him (amongst other things in a very two-way, very grown up conversation about his motivations) to think about what we were going to do to turn the day around when his time out was over. When I came back five minutes later, he was more calm and said "Daddy can we build a fort please?"
So we did. Big time. It was the best one we've ever made. I set it up so that we could watch TV in there, but we never did. Music lesson on his keyboard. Puzzle. A long game of SpotIt. We ate lunch in there. And Vera and I hung out in there for a few hours while Griff was napping. Success.
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