Sweetness

I am constantly learning the same lessons over and over. Tonight the remedial lesson was that Zack's behavior is always the best when I am the most consistent. It feels like "strict" and I have a tendency to want to cut him some slack. He's tired, we've drug him around on errands all day, he's been sick all week, just give a little from what I said. Unfortunately, that seems to backfire. He even reminds me while I'm letting him do whatever that "Mommy, you said we couldn't do this and we're doing it." Yikes, no slack for Mommy.

Tonight I did the empathy with consequences thing, the method we try to stick to, over the smallest thing. That caused a meltdown, and then I followed up with the empathy with consequences thing again. He emerged from the tears the sweetest boy ever. We had a fabulous rest of the evening, despite being sick, drug around and tired. He was as cuddly as he has been in a long time. He was obedient and even resilient to a change in plans. We talked about feelings - something rare that I suspect will get rarer. And now he's sleeping peacefully and I'm trying to hold this in my head for tomorrow - a consequence that can teach me something.