Mr. Spoon....

Lately, Sawyer has been really acting out. It is a fight with him from the moment he gets up in the morning, all day, and sometimes even in the middle of the night. It has just started up about 2 weeks ago, when I got back from Texas from work.

Now let me explain the demeanor of Sawyer. He is not spiteful in nature. He is a sweet child and he had seemed to in the past, to really have a conscience. He always tries to do right and he listen fairly well for a 2 year old. So, that is until the evil twin of Sawyer came to live at our house.

Let me explain what a typical day is. I hear him cry Mama in the morning. I go up there to see him laying in his crib, not even looking at me. I go over to say good morning, and he starts the whining. I tell him to stand up so I can get him up. "NOOOOO". So I tell him that I am going to leave him in there. The whining starts up...."Nooooo, mommy, nooooo mommy."

I turn around to get him out and he stands up so I can lift him up. I then proceed to undress him from his PJ's and tell him he needs to go to the potty to pee-pee. He then goes limp, screams and says he doesn't need to pee. Now this has started happening after 3 months of him going dry all night and not peeing on himself. I proceed to undress him to find out that he has a pull up that is full of pee that is sometimes leaking on his PJ's. I then drag him in the bathroom, force him to stand on the stool to pee. He pees while he is whining the whole time. He sometimes even aims the pee on the wall because he knows that makes me upset.

Then I dress him, wash his face, and tell him it is time to brush his teeth. (NOTE: while dressing him, he is fighting me to because he doesn't want to wear those socks or those pants or that color shirt.) I proceed to put toothpaste on the toothbrush and PRY his mouth open so I can brush that morning breath mouth. (Background, I am using fluoride toothpaste now, and he has been really good at spitting it out for a month or so... until now.) He then decides that he wants to swallow the toothpaste because I told him not too. I tell him that his teeth are going to turn brown, and he tells me that his teeth are not brown! It is the rebel stage coming out at 2!!! If I say it is white, he says it is black.

So anyway, to continue my story. We go downstairs to eat. Whatever I suggest to cook or fix for breakfast he doesn't want. So I tell him that he is going to be hungry because I don't have anything else to fix. I start fixing me and Braxton something, and he then whines because he wants that. I then give him the food I fixed,and he doesn't want that anymore, he wants something else. I tell him that I am not going to fix him anything else, he can eat what I fixed, we are not wasting food. This is how all our meals, snacks, drinks, etc is all day. A FIGHT.

To make a long, 10 page, version of this story of ONE DAY, shorter... here are a few other examples. He screams and goes limp when it is time to take a bath, take a nap, go to sleep at night, or come back inside from playing outside all day! He wants to go inside when we are going to go outside. He wants his shoes off when it is time for his shoes to be on! He wants a different pair of PJ's, or more CHOCOLATE in his milk..... you get the picture. It has been so frustrating that I don't know what I am going to do with 3 kids!!

Scott and I have really try all means of punishment. Putting him in his bed, putting him in time out in the corner, spanking, taking away something he likes, we even love on him and tell him how sad it makes us.... but whatever the punishment, it works for 2 minutes and then he is whining or doing something bad again. Obviously, some of it is jealousy, but some of it is just plain being spiteful!

SO, I decided to take a good friend's (which will remain anonymous) approach to punishment. "MR. SPOON"

Mr. Spoon has not even been to work on Sawyer at all... and it is working!!! He is so scared of Mr. Spoon, he does whatever I ask him to as soon as I bring his name up!! So to make him more intimidating... I drew a mean face on Mr. Spoon.

Here he is: The one and only Mr. Spoon! We will see how long this works!

PS. Update from when I started posting this a couple days ago.... HE IS JEALOUS! He is showing all signs of jealousy, wanting to be held, doing things just to get attention, when I hold Braxton he runs over to me and about knocks me over to get me to hold him too, pushing Braxton when he is near me. I am just ready for this stage to be OVER with!