Tricks of the Trade

A few tricks I use with the boys (mostly Colin)...

• If Colin is misbehaving (particularly in relation to a toy)... such as using a toy as a hammer/club, kicking a ball inside the house, etc. the toy (not the boy!) is put in time out.  Sometimes in the garage, or possibly on top of the fridge or armoire.  This gets a significantly greater response and reaction from Colin than any time out I could give him directly.
• Car alarm: the car alarm is my good friend.  For a while I was having difficulty getting Colin in his carseat.  He would clamber into the front seat (or back to the 3rd row of seats) and I'd have to chase him down and literally drag him back into his seat.  Not because he really dislikes his carseat - he just wasn't ready to settle down yet.  Now I sneakily hit the car alarm and tell Colin that the car is getting mad because he isn't listening.  The loud noise clearly startles him, and (with eyes like dinner plates!) he makes an immediate beeline for his carseat.  I just have to threaten the car getting mad now and he jumps to get in his seat.
• Ryan sometimes gets off track during a meal, and takes great pleasure in slapping the food-filled spoon at high speed.  He then will quickly dip his hands into any food on his tray, or if he's managed to get a handful (a frequent occurrence) he will quickly slick some through his hair.  Trying to move my hand before he slaps the spoon is nearly impossible - I swear, even at 11 months this kid has lightning-hands.  Instead I distract him.  I'll toss a handful of cheerios on the tray.  When he's busy picking them up I slide the spoon up against his lips and he reflexively opens his mouth and eats.  I'm also not above slipping the spoon in his mouth when he opens it to pop in a cheerio.  Anything goes!
•  Another food trick with Ryan... the extra spoon.  (I can't take total credit for this one - it actually came from Laura.)  Now that he is a little older he sometimes needs a little distraction or he'll stop eating.  So I hand him his own spoon to hold.  You can't believe how well this works!  He'll hold it, examine it, turn it over and over and around and around... and all the while I'm shoveling food into his mouth!  It doesn't last forever, and I might not get a whole meal into him, but I get a brief respite from the food-swatting and every moment helps!

But by far my best trick came when trying to get Colin on board with potty training.  A few months back Colin was on the verge of being potty trained - I swear it!  He woke up bone-dry every day for about 2 weeks, was going potty every time I asked him to, and I was thinking it might be time for (GASP!) underwear.  Then something went awry.  He started waking up with a very wet pullup every day, sobbing and refusing to go when I would bring him to the potty... it was a total about-face.  I knew better than to try and battle him on this, so I just let it go.  I would ask him if he wanted to use the potty, but if he said no I accepted it.

Don't worry - I wasn't giving in.  I was biding my time.
Mama doesn't cave in that easy!

Instead I went online and found some bait.  I purchased five (yes, FIVE!) giant dinosaur toys.  Each one was 18-24 inches long: Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, and Styracosaurus.  One day we came home from school/work and there was a box at the door.  I opened it and pulled out dinosaur after dinosaur... Colin was nearly delirious with excitement.  But instead of handing them to him, I took each dinosaur and one by one put them up on the mantle over the fireplace.  Colin never even got to touch them.


He started to get a bit hysterical, not understanding what I was doing, so I told him.  The dinosaurs were only for boys who wear underpants to school.  That was all it took.  The dinosaurs arrived on a Thursday, and my plan was to work with Colin over the weekend, then start sending him to school in undies on Monday.  The next morning (Friday) I went to get Colin dressed, grabbed a pullup... and he became hysterical!  "I want underpants!!!!!"

I managed to get him to school, we worked on it over the weekend (he was dry the whole time - just a minor accident at bedtime), and on Monday morning he went to school in underpants!  That was it.  When I went to pick him up at the end of the day, not only was he dry (and still in the same outfit), his teachers informed me that he refused to wear a pullup for naptime.  The kid wasn't taking any chances!  Bone dry all day, just like that!  When we got home I let him pick one dinosaur from the mantle - it was all his now!  Each day he got one more dinosaur until by Friday he had them all!

Since then he's been Mr. Dry-pants.  I still have to remind him, but in less than two weeks we've gone from pullups all the time to Colin staying dry and occasionally asking to go to the potty, and I expect things will only get better.

All hail the power of the mighty dinosaurs!