Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Such a 2-year-old

You'll all be happy to know Sidamo is really embracing his identity as a 2-year-old. His absolute favorite word is no. He must say it a few hundred times a day—sometimes he even sings it. And of course, nothing is more fun than defiance right now. Yes, I get that it's a normal and necessary developmental stage, but for everyone's safety and sanity, Greg and I decided we needed some concerted discipline efforts. We (read: I) read a book (read: half of a book) called 1-2-3 Magic that offers up a simple discipline plan. Basically, it's counting to three when you want the child to stop a bad behavior. If he doesn't stop when you get to three, he gets a time-out or some other age-appropriate consequence (we use more of a time-in, since time-outs aren't recommended with adopted kids). Anyway, we've been doing this, and it's actually working quite well.

Or at least it was working quite well. A couple days ago, we were having dinner and Sidamo was using his feet to push against the table and tip his high chair back—one of his favorite games, and something that terrifies me and is expressly forbidden. Greg asked him to stop, and he didn't, so Greg looked at Sidamo and said firmly, "Sidamo, that's one." Sidamo looked at him, smiled, and continued doing it as he screamed, "TWO!" Greg and I tried so hard not to laugh, but we just couldn't keep it in, and soon the three of us were in hysterics. So much for discipline.

3 comments:

whatever_heather said...

Ohhh, we love 1-2-3! At first Charlie would just count with us, but now gets it. Usually when I say "Oooone" in a stern mommy voice, he just runs away from whatever he was doing and starts laughing and hugging me like, "oh, mmom I was just kiddin"...haha. That's awesome it's working for you guys too. Aren't they just TOO CLEVER?? It's amazing how sneaky they can be! But so much fun, too.
;) Let's see some 2 year old Sid pics!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing - that was funny!

Our 16 month's old favorite (and seems like only word) is uh-oh.

We had a try-not-laugh situation last night. In the middle of dinner our seven year old started bawling. Turns out he was worried Dad was going to cut off his lip! His lip was hurting and Frank always jokes about "owies" and how he's going to cut it off. He'd never taken it that seriously before!

Alicia said...

hee-hee, I've been there so many times with Benjamin, cracking up when I'm supposed to be disciplining him but he just makes me laugh. I'm so ineffective it hurts. :)