Izey's First Time-Out

Our little Angel can be somewhat of a stinker these days. Luckily for now, the extent of his misbehavior involves throwing things not meant to be thrown or sometimes running away when we ask him very kindly to "COME HERE, ISAAC DAVID!"

Fellow moms told me that when my baby was ready for true discipline, I would know. Lately Isaac has been doing things he's not supposed to do while saying, "No! NoNoNo!" to himself. Once in awhile, as was the case tonight, I will tell him "No throwing blocks," which he takes as a challenge. He gets this twinkle in his eye and a defiant smirk on his little mouth as he stares into my "I mean it!" eyes and raises the block above his head, poised to disobey. Usually he responds to a request to do something constructive with the object to be thrown, like, "Can you make a tower with the block?" or "Can you put the food on the counter?" but tonight constructive suggestions were disregarded and the block was hurled onto the kitchen table.

Calmly but firmly, I told Isaac, "You have to have a time-out because you threw the block and didn't listen to Momma." And I took his giggly little self to the most boring corner in the condo, by the back door.

"You have to stand in this corner for a time-out because you threw the block," I told him in my best stern disciplinarian voice.

"Hee hee," he giggled. This is a fun game, Momma. He came out of his corner and tried to sit in my lap.

"Nope. You have to stand in this corner because you threw the block. This is a time-out." I put him back in the corner.

"Hee hee," he giggled. Then he got the same twinkle in his eye and tested with me with one little step out of the corner. I restrained him with a hand.

(If you repeat the above scene about 5 times, you have an accurate picture of what happened for the next 30 seconds.)

"Stay in your corner for your time out." I am not smiling, mister.

"Hee. Uh?" That giggle turned into the slightest bit of a whine. Momma, you don't look like you're playing.

I think he's getting it. "OK, Isaac. You can come play now. You had a time-out because you threw blocks. No more throwing blocks."

He giggled away and we came back to the living room. Zach gave me a secret smile and we tried making some towers with the blocks, confident that our boy had learned a valuable lesson tonight.

And then he threw another block.