James... poor James. He was so tired today. He must not have gotten nearly enough sleep last night. He and I went over to my parent's house for dinner (crab! yum) and we didn't get home until 9. He went to bed then, but got up a bit early for a usual morning around here, which was around 7. Yes, I know several of you moms out there want to kill me right now because sleeping IN until 7 a.m. is a luxury to some of you, but just keep in mind the hell we'll go through when he starts Kindergarten next year. ;)
Anyway, he was tired.
He and Kaitlyn were fighting a lot this morning while our nanny, Mimi, was here. She had told me about it when I got home from my amazing, kick butt workout at the Y *hooray*, and they were still bickering as she was telling me. After lunch time it got pretty bad, so Mimi made the ultimate decision that both of them needed to go take naps. This went over like a lead balloon for James.
"I am NOT going upstairs! I am NOT taking a nap!" was what I heard from his mouth when I was upstairs trying to print my grocery list. Then I heard Mimi call my name. "Meredith... he kicked me."
UH OH. NO, you didn't James... :(
I hauled downstairs and put him on the naughty step immediately which sent his verbal rant up about 50 decibels.
"I am NOT going upstairs to bed. Mommy is NOT a good girl. Neither is Mimi. Mommy is usually a good girl but NOT today. I'm going to do something to them. I'm going to send them to bed with NO dinner."
Oh the foreshadowing irony.
He didn't nap, but he did rest. Kaitlyn didn't nap either. Sigh. But, at least they rested, and then later Mimi took them to the park to get the ants out of their pants for about an hour. She said they didn't stop once... which showed on their red faces when they got home.
Enter dinnertime. While they were gone at the park, I had made Broccoli Cheese soup and a Chicken and Rice Casserole (Paula Dean on FoodNetwork) that has lots of fun stuff in that is very good... to some people. :)
James has been complaining about dinner pretty much every night. He makes gagging sounds when he sits at the table (although it's totally fake), and says, "YUCK!"
I had mentioned this problem to a few of my girlfriends the other day and got a few good pointers. One was that I should explain to him that when he says that he hurts my feelings... like it would hurt his feelings if I said that I didn't like one of the paintings that he made for me. The other was a much more stern recommendation.... She told me that if he complains, take his dinner away and ask him to leave the table. I tried explaining to him about the "feelings" a few times before today, but it just didn't seem to sink in.
After about 10 minutes of all of us sitting at the table and James not eating and complaining, I did it. I took his meal away and put it by the sink. "Okay then, if you're just going to complain, you won't eat." Of course he started howling and crying, and then I told him that he was excused and he had to leave the table. Then he pipes up mid-blubber "... But I think I'm ready to eat my dinner now."
I looked at Nathan, and we agreed... too late kid. You had your chance. This sent him wailing and screaming off to the couch. Then he started in with the verbal stuff again, telling us, Nathan and me, that we had to go live somewhere else and that he was NOT going to eat EVER again. Ha!
Nathan took him up to take a bath and put him to bed. He cried through his whole bath. He spent a while hanging out in his bed and talking, then started asking for me to come upstairs. "Mommy, I'm hungry."
"Sorry James. You didn't eat dinner, you just complained so I took your dinner away. That will teach you a lesson. Go to sleep." He talked me into, well, more or less I talked myself into, giving him a drink of water and tucking him in.
Humph. I'm happy this day is over.
