The Enforcer

Yesterday at daycare Nathan got caught jumping off the table, so he was forced to write lines as a punishment. He absolutely refused to do it at daycare, so we had to enforce the punishment at home. In typical Bruce fashion, he leaves shortly after I get home so that he can go to the neighbors house so that they can work on Bruce's little trailer. He has had this trailer for about four months, but he decided that tonight it had to be fixed.

I sit Nathan down at the bar, but he is not producing any results. Darren is eating dinner next to him and he keeps picking on Nathan so that is compounding the problem. I make Nathan move to the kitchen table. After about a half hour of a lot of crying and yelling (from both of us), he only has half a sentence wrote of the five that he was supposed to do. I first threaten him with no snacks after daycare or before bed and no desserts. That didn't motivate him so I threaten him with no TV (meaning his shows) for a week. Still no action. I tell him that I am going to call Grandpa Ken. He let out a wail that the neighbors had to hear as he hates to disappoint Grandpa Ken. I finally get feed up and call Grandpa Ken. He is wailing so loud that I can barely hear what is being said on the other end of the phone. Grandpa Ken isn't in the house, so he talks to Grandma Deb. After all that, he still is not writing his lines. I send him to bed while I call Bruce and tell Bruce that I have spent the past hour sitting with Nathan trying to get him to write his lines and I am done as I have had enough. The other two boys need a bath yet, dishes need done and I feel emotionally drained after all that.

Bruce comes home and I let him hoover over Nathan while I give the boys a bath. By the time they were out of the tub 15 minutes later, Nathan was sitting down and writing his lines. Not sure what was said, or promised, but at least he was writing. Bruce decides that he is going to go back over to the neighbors as he only has one line left to write. When Nathan is done, I glance at it but do not sit down to actually read it. Later that evening when Bruce comes home he asks to see the paper. It turns out that Nathan forgot a letter to one of the words and then he completely omitted a word. Bruce gets Nathan to get in there to write another sentence since he messed up, and the whole crying and yelling process starts over again. I tell Bruce to keep his voice down as Justin is in bed and if he wakes him up, Bruce will have to deal with him.

After ten minutes or so, Bruce gives up and says that it is good enough. Nathan is so damn stubborn! I hope this isn't a foreshadowing of all the problems we are going to have with him when he gets into school!