Don't Hit!

Parenting is hard.  

There's so much I want to be excited about.  So much I want to talk about here.  His speech has taken remarkable leaps in the last few months.  His focus is amazing.  We can sit down and read twenty, thirty, forty pages of a book and he just sits, enraptured.  And his dexterity, his confidence in his body, are growing every day.  

But I need to get this out of my system.  

Yesterday, Oliver hit Mrs. B today in the face. Not bad enough to leave a mark or draw blood, but still - he hit her in the face.

He had already done something else that was not allowed, and she was trying to bring him into his bedroom for a time-out.  And that's when he smacked her in the face.  

Earlier in the day, he also threw a shoe at her. 

This isn't the first time he's hit one of us, and it's getting more and more frequent. He's getting more physical with his displeasure about things - kicking at us, throwing things, hitting. I see a glint of pleasure in his eyes sometimes when he's trying to hit me and I'm telling him to stop. 

When he's angry, I've talked to him about throwing stuffed animals or hitting pillows, like you're supposed to, but he always seems to end up throwing something hard and usually in the direction of one of us. 

Time outs don't seem especially effective, mostly because it's so damn hard to get him into his bedroom for a time out and usually he tries to hit or kick again.  We're trying to adjust things a little bit.  Our previous routine was that with time outs, we'd just put him in his room until he calmed down, give him a chance to apologize, and then let him come out.  We've been looking at one of the Love and Logic books and changing our routine a bit. Following the book's suggestion, we're going to start having him sit for a few extra minutes in his room just to make sure he's completely calmed down before he comes out. It also seems like it's in the spirit of what I understand time outs to be: a change in the energy of the situation.  

I hope this is just one of those things he has to go through, because right now, this sucks.  

The Things He Says: Getting Runny-Aroundy with It

The boy has been coming up with some hilarious turns of phrase lately.  None of this will be interesting to anyone who has a kid, and then it will only be entertaining once you realize the kid is only four.  Or hell, maybe it's not entertaining to anyone but me.  Tough cookies.  

Here's a few examples of his verbage:

~~~~~

I was at home with Oliver one day, and I was playing Living Colour. (What?) 

Oliver loved it.  He started dancing and running around the living room like a maniac. I commented: "I forgot what great dancing music this is. Do you think it's good dancey music, Oliver?" 

Oliver: "Uh huh. And runny-aroundy music, too."

And then he commenced to run around the place some more.

~~~~~

He was describing a story that someone was reading at his school.  I asked innocently, "Oh, was one of your teachers reading the story?"

"No, someone interesting."

~~~~~

This morning, he was trying carefully to craft a prepositional phrase.  You could practically hear him diagramming the sentence in his head.  

"By watching you guys..."

Long pause.  Then he tried again.

"By watching you guys do it, I think I know how to button my buttons." 

It seems like such a small phrase, but it was just so great to see him carefully put the sentence together in his head, and then try and recite what was in his head.  He really wanted to say it exactly right.