I Taught I Taw A Putty Tat

With Fred fully implanted into the Terrible Two’s we seem to be constantly having to reel him in. As a parent there’s a fine line between letting your child have fun and letting him do whatever he wants. There are days Lucy and I go to bed feeling guilty for having said “NO! STOP THAT!” all day and other times when we feel we haven’t said it enough.

While we do spank, we tend to save that for extreme cases like throwing rocks at your mom cause you don’t want to leave daycare or boxing your dad’s ears when he stops you from playing in a crowded church parking lot. Basically you can’t beat the kid all day so what you end up with are several trips to Time-Out.

In the Blockhead household Time-Out involves going into the front room (originally it was to be the family room, but for some reason we refuse to sit in there) and sitting in an elephant shaped chair facing the door. This generally works for all minor violations. By now he knows the way so all we have to say is “Go to Time-Out” and he takes off head hanging in shame. Though there are several toys in the room, they weren’t a problem until this past weekend.

“Fred we do not throw our juice cups across the room!! Time-Out”

Head hung and sobbing he takes off followed by myself just to make sure he makes it there ok.

“5 minutes! No crying. Then if you can behave we will play some more”

Two minutes in we start to hear voices coming from the other room. At first we think it’s the neighbors then we decide that unless they are sitting in our front yard screaming their love of New YoGo’s Fruit Roll-Ups, Fred has discovered the ON button to the Television.

“Fred. Did you turn on the TV while you were supposed to be in Time-out?”

Sitting there where we left him in the elephant chair facing the door Fred looks up eyes wide and says “Nu Unh”

“You didn’t? Then who did?”

With his arm and pointed index finger suddenly slicing through the air like a Ninja throwing star Fred gave the only possible and most obvious explanation.

“Kitty!!”

Buttons and Fred have this love hate relationship that has grown over time. At first Buttons couldn’t stand Fred. Than Fred didn’t like Buttons. Then Fred learned to feed Buttons. Now Buttons lets Fred pet him as long as Fred sneaks up behind him and does it while I’m scratching his ears. At the mention of his name Buttons who was sleeping in his trunk across the room raises up and cut’s a mean look in Fred’s direction.

“Are you sure Kitty turned on the TV?”

“Unnnn Huhhhh!!”

“You saw Kitty get up, turn on the TV, then go waaaay over there, and fall back to sleep?”

“Unnn Huhhh. Kitty sleeping”

At that point Time-Out ended. How can you punish him after coming up with that fantastic story? Already I’m planning on using it the next time Lucy finds my shoes under the coffee table and when my boss wonders who ate the last of the donuts.