T-O

Now that Z is plenty old enough to get into mischief, we've had to begin disciplinary actions.  We started out by trying to make him sit still by himself for awhile.  That didn't work.  Then we tried having him sit at the end of the hall (super boring zone) with a timer for a time-out.  The first time we did this, he immediately went back and did the same thing he got in trouble for...five times in a row.  Now granted, we'd only just started doing it and he wasn't indoctrinated yet, but that was still pretty frustrating.  Finally though we got him to where he'd sit in a chair (with a belt to keep him from jumping right back down) for 3 minutes on the timer.  So now he cries when we put him in the chair for about 3 seconds, then sings for the duration.  From the get-go we've made it a question of not being a good listener, rather than the specific infraction.  So if he threw a toy, and we had told him not to, he was in time out because he didn't listen.  Then when the timer went off, we'd ask him if he knew why he was in time-out.  The correct response is, as spoken by Z, "Know why in time-out?  Not be a good listener.  Mommy said don't throw the toy.  Be good listener now?"  And then he's off the hook (til next time...).  It's gotten now to where he doesn't even wait for the timer to go off before launching into a recital of what he did wrong...sometimes even as we're sitting him down!  It's really hard not to laugh...