Mommy 1 Chandler 0

Chandler’s First Timeout

My sweet, innocent, little Chandler received his first timeout a few days ago.  Like most punishable actions of a twenty-month old, it was near impossible for me to maintain my composure and not laugh at the darling child.  

While I was trying to clean up the kitchen, I sent Chandler on a mission to go put Cooper’s baby bathtub back in the bathroom (we bathe Cooper in the kitchen sometimes).  Off he went, dragging the tub, which equaled him in length, behind him.  After about 5 minutes of scary silence, I went to check on his progress only to meet him in the living room, caring a cup of water, sloshing small amounts of it all over the place.  Hmm….water in a cup, I thought.  Okay…..  Well, I scared him as we met and he dumped the cup all over the living room floor.  Mind you, the cup was still quite full so now there was a lot of water all over our carpet.  Hmmmm….water all over the carpet.  Then, the lightbulb went off and I realized where the water probably came from.  I’m sure you can guess.  Chandler is not tall enough to reach the sink faucet, even with his stool.  And, he can’t turn the bathtub water on.  So I was starting to put it all together and went into the bathroom, only to find Cooper’s bathtub with about an inch of water in it, a rather large puddle around the base of the toilet, and smaller puddles scattered throughout the bathroom.  Great.

Needless to say, I told Chandler that we don’t play in the toilet and that he was going to timeout and he looked at me with the most perplexed, blank stare.  After all, he was just filling up the bathtub, right?!  I am exceptionally proud of him for problem solving! But, I sat him down in the hallway, continuing to explain his wrong-doing in the most basic words I could find without laughing and I went to work cleaning up the water.  He only tried to get up once and I quickly sat him back down and that’s when the crying started.   I made him sit there for two minutes, which felt like ten to me, and to him, I’m sure.  I think the timeout was successful and I really think he got it.  I am grateful for another discipline tool I can finally use with him.  I’m not so grateful for the toilet water but as long as some good came out of it, I suppose.