Date Nite with a Fugitive

I had a hot date last week.

He is gorgeous, and very youthful.

I love his sense of humor.

We went to the movies together.  He held my hand!

At one point he even climbed up into my lap, declaring into my ear his favorite sweet-nothing "I nevoh let you out my ahrms."

We shared Skittles and stayed till the credits were over and the lights came back up.

I don't usually go for younger men, but I just couldn't resist his boyish charm.  I hope he goes out with me again sometime.

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As we left the theater, Jonah-boy saw an arcade-style photo booth out in the mall.  He wanted to know all about it, and then, of course, he wanted to DO it.

Funny, this from the boy who hides from my camera every time I try to capture his little round face. Stinker.

I refused to pay $5 a pop, but then I had an idea.  We got into the booth and went through the motions.  And except for the little thrill of watching the strip of pictures drop out of the machine into the tray, it was just about the same experience as the funny photo booth.  Of course, there was no merciless countdown that pops a bright flash in your face whether you are ready for it or not, which was very helpful with this camera-shy boy.

This off-duty superhero is a real challenge lately.  He torments his sisters, annoys his big brothers, and throws cloud-burst-like fits many, many times a day.  He refuses to pick up his toys, and changes clothes 4-8 times a day, always opting for a fresh outfit and leaving the others on the floor like abandoned snake sheds.

And I think he is my youngest to try his hand at lying.  Today he said, "I'm full!" to avoid eating the rest of his dinner, but then when he heard there was pie, he sang out, "I want pie!"

"But you just said you were too full to finish dinner.  If you are too full for dinner, you're too full for pie."

His reply was very straight forward:

"I lied!" he said frankly.

*Sigh*.  Of the many phases of childhood, this one I could do without.  This, and booger eating.  Oh! and the "fart-laugh-fart-some-more-because-you-laughed" phase. Followed by - you guessed it - laughing.

I read an article the other day about a study determining that time-outs are ineffective because the offending child views them as punishment.  Uh, hellloooooo, duh.  That's the whole point, isn't it?  Wow, my bad-momma-flag is flyin' high now.

The article says that you need to take the mis-behaving child, the mini-miscreant, and snuggle them and love all over them.  Well, not exactly that, but it did read a little like "reward the criminal by slobbing him with kisses, thus reinforcing all future wooden-block-throwing".  Rubber stamp of approval.  Sounds like a great way to create a monster to me.

A little voice in my frontal lobe reminded me that the single way to get Jonah to mellow out when he is in that Thelma-and-Louise, I'm-drivin'-this-trike-off-a-cliff-and-taking-y'all-with-me rage is if I coax him into my arms and love away the grumpies.  I don't see using this for our pint-sized hooligan as the first resort post-malfeasance, but maybe when holding down the linoleum in the entry-way at our board-approved time-out spot proves futile, it wouldn't hurt to try.

We'll let you know how it goes.

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