A Brief Pause in the Ineffective Discipline at the Johnson Residence

Do you know what this is? It is on my carpet and it is the innards of a diaper. A pee diaper sprayed across my carpet little gel capsules of pee. Because I was lazy and decided to go for a three pointer into the garbage from the fireplace. And it broke open on the corner of the fridge and sprayed. My Mom burst out laughing and I begrudgingly cleaned it up. Thankfully the vacuum is effective in this sort of clean up.


This is Mr Lucas taking a beautiful nap. I truly love it when he takes a nap. He had a surprise waiting for me moments after I snapped this picture. He had pooped his underwear which is why he is sleeping on his belly. I have never rinsed poopy diapers or anything poopy in a toilet. It is gross and that is why I thank God for disposable diapers. However he has the cutest new boxer briefs that I refuse to throw away. Therefore I had my first experience rinsing poop out into a toilet. It was so freakin' foul, the chunks wouldn't come off the fabric and I wasn't about to use my fingernails or anything! My Mom had to come in and save me from the gagging. She acted as if this should be no big deal to me, and I truly don't know on what planet rinsing a nasty poopy into a toilet isn't gross.


The following photos should be titled:
The abuse of furniture OR
Why I can't have nice things
you decide.























Oh don't worry. Nick jumped willingly. He sprang up from the ground laughing and climbed up the couch to do it all over again. Normally they get in trouble for all of this, but I wanted to pause in the "discipline" to capture this on camera so I could share.

This brings me to my current problem. Discipline. According to the two foot high stack of books I have at my bedside, discipline isn't a form of punishment. The two things are separate. Punishment is not an acceptable parenting form anymore. Discipline is the new fad. Discipline can take the form of a time-out which is used to simply stop the bad behavior, not to punish the bad behavior. Time-outs are to give everyone a breather to regroup before the parent moves to distract the child so that they will no longer misbehave. Yes. Distract. Eventually the child will no longer seek to do the bad things because they will have been constantly distracted with the good behavior and will only seek out that which they are used to doing.

BULLSHIT. ALL. OF. IT.

I am at my wits end here. I can't find anything that works with Lucas. Timeouts are fun, going to his room is fun, sitting in the naughty chair is fun, the removal of toys isn't a big deal, my disapproval is no biggie, loss of privileges isn't anything to blink about either. I'm at a loss. What now? Discipline my ass. Punishment. I need punishment.

There is however some merit to the distraction thing. I have noticed that an occupied child does not get in as much trouble as a child left to occupy themselves. But I can't constantly provide one activity after another all day long, all WEEK long just so that my little angels stay out of trouble. They need to self entertain. Which is why I am loving the warm weather. Because right before I feel like I'm gonna blow - I throw them outside. And I close the screen door and I watch them from the comfort of my couch while I regroup. Yesterday, from the comfort of the couch, I watched Nick take a large bite out of a mud pie that Lucas had prepared for him. My Mom gasped and asked me what I was going to do. My reply was this: "As long as it isn't dog poop I'm not doing anything." Dirt eating builds immunity . . . to dirty things? Right?