Consequences

I had to dole out the harshest punishment in Lily's young life the other night. 

Suzanne's been good wielding the time out when necessary, but my discipline has pretty much been limited to the tilted head and the cocked eyebrow, with maybe a "LILY PEARL!".  But when she refused to eat her dinner, I found myself forced into taking things to the next level. 

Consequences.

"Lily, do you want to go straight to bed?  Because if you don't eat your supper, it's straight to bed with no stories."

She nibbled pieces of her sweet potato fries and eventually got down most of the chicken, but in the end, Lily decided that my threat was empty.  When she dropped food on the floor and pushed away the pieces I'd been weakly trying to airplane-into-the-hangar, I knew I had to follow though. 

My stomach sank at the prospect.

"Say goodnight to Mommy," I said, while unbuckling her booster seat.

"Goodnight, Mommy!"   I'm getting out of this! 

But halfway down the hall, the awful realization set in and she started with the crying.  I adopted a 'strictly business' policy and changed her into the jim-jims without saying a word.  She continued crying throughout the tuck-in.

"Do you know why you're going to bed early?"  Stops crying and shakes the head.

"You're going to bed early because you wouldn't eat your dinner when Mommy and I asked you to."

I said night night and left.  She cried and cried and when she started calling me by title, I went back.  I sat on the edge of the bed and we talked it out. 

"If you want to play soccer like Daddy (she does), then you have to eat dinner to grown up big and strong."

"But sometimes I don't like it."

That was an excellent argument.  'When you grow up you can choose your food, but right now, you're like a goose, and you'll eat what we force down your throat' certainly didn't strike the right tone.

I made up some silly analogy about how food is like the gas we get at the gas station and it makes us go, just like the gas makes the car go.   

Lame. 

We eventually worked out the importance of eating, but as I got up to leave, she started crying again, and in that tiny, 2-year-old little voice, whimpered, "But I'm not sleepy.  Why am I not sleepy?"

Another excellent argument!  'You might not be sleepy, but if I let you get up, you'll learn that you can get one over on me every time, just by crying and being sweet' while true, wasn't helpful.

I came out and walked back down the hall, tears in my big baby eyes because I knew she didn't really get it, but I had to do it.  Or did I?  I don't even know.  I suppose I did.  Suzanne met me with a delicious glass of Niagara's finest and patted my back. 

"She'll be fine."  And she was, of course.  The next morning she crawled into our bed and we snuggled for a while before breakfast.


That whole business about 'this'll hurt me more than it'll hurt you' might have something to it.