Timeout!

We had a very busy day today. Lucy went to Gymboree in the morning and we spent the afternoon shopping for home improvement supplies.

Which means Lucy spent the afternoon running in circles around Lowes.

That made for a VERY tired, VERY cranky toddler this evening.

When Lucy gets tired, Lucy forgets to follow the rules.

"Don't color on the furniture Lucy!!" Time. Out.

We do timeouts by the books. First I told her what she did wrong. Then I told her to go to timeout. She went and stood in the corner while I stood behind her and slowly counted to thirty. Then I let her turn around and face me, and I again explained what she did wrong. "It is not okay to color on the chair, Lucy."  I made her apologize. "Sorry" is a new word this week. So she flung herself on me, gave me a huge hug, and exclaimed "Sawwy!" over and over again. Then she ran through the house yelling "SAWWY! SAWWY! SAWWY!" to find Peter, Tommy, Rambo, Tori, and Bear and let them all know how sorry she was. After reassurances that we all loved her and forgave her, I gave her a sponge and made her clean up her mess.

I thought making her clean up the mess was a good way to learn that her actions have consequences.

Lucy thought cleaning up the mess was a great game.

She had a bigger tantrum over the end of the clean up process than she did over the timeout.