Day After Christmas Syndrome

No surprise, but M had a day after Christmas that beat any behavior I've ever seen out of her. I kept my cool for the most part though. I tried to remember a lot of my Love and Logic things that I learned and calmly responded to her utter disrespect and rudeness with quiet words such as, "uh oh. I'm so sorry you made that choice (or you chose to behave that way). " Then I'd dole out the consequence. Bless her heart, on the day after Christmas I had to take away the entire Rose Petal Cottage and all its accessories. She was to have to do 3 chores to earn it all back, but she didn't want to, so we waited until she realized she might like to do a chore after all...much later that night.

In fact, she lost her privilege with that early in the day and it go worse! In fact, her new phrase when she is in that mood is (said with enthusiasm much like you would see in one of these princess movies she enjoys), "Never!" For example:

me: "Uh oh. I'm sorry you made that choice. That will be three minutes on the naughty spot. go on now and I'll set the timer.
m: No! I won't!
me: M. You need to get up and sit on the naughty spot now or mommy will have to get mr. sad spoon.
m: "Never!"
me: (out comes mr. sad spoon)
m: "I won't do it!"
me: carrying my almost 40 lb, 3 1/2 yr old to the spot while she is flailing.
m: She sits...kicks and has a fit, but remains there none the less.

when the time is up we typically say our apologies and briefly run through the choices that lead to the consequence. We didn't get very far with it all this time cause mr. nasty reared his ugly head again. And thus it was time for bed...with no supper mind you, but we had given her the option to make the right choice and she did not.

After taking her to her room and laying her in her bed twice and turning off the light...shutting the door all the way (listening to her tantrum) twice...hubs heard her talking out loud to herself about what the right choices would be. Then she pulled herself together, opened her door and came to me and said, "I got it together. I'm sorry that I acted so ugly. Can I please not go to bed? (mind you it is only about 5:30 or 6)"

me: "you'll have to go talk to your daddy about that.
m to her daddy:"I'm sorry for disrespectful. I got it together now. Can I please not go to bed yet? That's the right thing to say. I talked about it in my room and that's the right choices."

OF COURSE we let her say her sorries and gave her forgiveness and kisses and love. She was able to stay up a bit more for supper and some short Arthur movies that she got for Christmas. But she, herself, decided that she was tired. So last night, for the first time ever...we had both kids in bed before 8 pm. That is unheard of around here. Well, it was pretty close to that tonight as well, but she was much better behaved.

So behaved was my little girl that she did her 2 remaining chores to earn her house back. She was sweet almost all day, so I let her skip quiet time and we (just she and I) went to walmart, aldi, and starbucks. I even bought her some purple flowers she wanted (mums) cause they were 1/2 off of $5. We returned a toy that we got two of, took the cash from the return to buy some groceries for J for when we are out of town next week. We went to Starbuck cause I had a coupon for a free drink and just enough on a gift card to get M an apple juice and a sour cream donut. The whole escapade cost me a grand total of $0! Fantastic!