Apology

On Tuesday afternoon Lincoln laid in his bed crying, whining, talking, and playing with toys. Everything BUT napping. I tried every tactic I could think of from giving him a drink, snack, ignoring him, threatening him, calm voice to mean mommy voice and NOTHING worked. I was frustrated and finally gave up after 1.5 hours.

After he had been up for a little while I went to him and apologized b/c I felt like maybe I had been to hard on him during the non-nap process.

Fast forward 2 hours later and I decided about 4:45 to head to sonic to grab a drink and a bit for dinner. Cory was out of town and I just needed to bust out. So off we went to Sonic. When we returned home Lincoln (who has recently started this new habit) wants to take the DVD out of the car and take it in the house. However, it is scratching up the movies from all the handling so I told him we were not going to do that anymore.

And then it started. 15 minutes of a total no-nap meltdown. He has not done this in probably a year. I again tried all my normally successful tactics - ignore, gave him space, put him in timeout, etc. I finally distracted him into his chair to eat dinner to which he ate a TON. Once he was done eating he asked to get down. I was in the kitchen cleaning up. He walked in tapped me on the leg and said "I'm happy now mommy. I am sorry I was so sad. I just wanted my movie but it is ok now."

I never want to forget this story. I learned a lesson too b/c I think eating my humble pie and apologizing earlier in the day modeled to him when and how to apologize.

Is there a spot in the baby book for the first comprehensive self-initiated apology? If so this would go next to it. So maybe just maybe all this parenting work is showing some fruits. Maybe.









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