Operation Bucket Filling

It hasn't been all frappie hours and strawberry rain boots around here though, Fans.  The first picture below was taken after Julie arrived home from her book club on Wednesday night.  If you're looking for Clara, we should tell you that she is the figure completely covered by the blanket on top of the mattress that is in the middle of the floor.  The night before, she slept on a mattress that she'd stripped bare but hadn't relocated to the floor.  She stays dry at night about 50% of the time, but that night, Julie lifted her up while Ted slid some GoodNites pads under her.  Naturally, the following night, on which this first picture was taken when she'd again stripped the mattress bare before relocating it, we took a chance, and awoke to a pee-soaked mattress.  Silver lining: we now know how to remove urine stains and smells from a mattress.*  The night after this picture was taken, Clara slept on the floor with nothing more than a blanket.  This after her mattress was removed in a huff and pitched on the porch just before the door was slammed, locked, and the key removed and placed on a high shelf.

As you may have sensed from the devolution described above, Clara spent a fair amount of time after being put down to bed this week acting like a ferrel animal.  Stripping off her underwear and pajama pants and running around in only her shirt (sleeves are still tricky for her)--around the bambini's room, in and out of it, around the down stairs--screaming, naturally.  A go-to behavior correction tactic for us is ignoring unwanted behaviors.  But this tactic has a lower rate of success when one has two children and one of them is doing something the other finds hilarious.  When ignoring the behavior fails to work, as it inevitably does, we yell.  This tactic, too, has a lower rate of success when one has two children who find this behavior hilarious as well, until one yells so loud one or both bambini start crying.

So.  Clearly it was time for a new tack.  We went back to basics, figuring that perhaps the bambini were acting out because they felt they weren't getting enough positive, focused, individual attention.  Of course there is a part of you that thinks, "MY WORLD AND EVERY WAKING MOMENT REVOLVES AROUND ONE OR BOTH OF THEM!!!!!  HOW CAN I POSSIBLY PAY ANY MORE ATTENTION TO THEM UNLESS I CEASE ALL ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING?!?!?!"  (You think these sort of thoughts in all caps.)  Here's what we've done: we are employing man-to-man defense once the bambini are out of the bathtub, we are both reading to them, and they are being read to separately once again.  So one parent helps one bambino into pajamas as needed and then that parent reads to and puts that bambino to bed.  Everyone's bucket gets filled better because the bambini are each getting focused attention, and we aren't correcting exponentially expanding misbehaviors.

Since we began Operation Bucket Filling, we have had two nights of progressively better behavior post-tuck in.  Hopefully sweet dreams are just around the corner.

*You combine 8 ounces of hydrogen peroxide with three tablespoons of baking soda and a drop of liquid dishwashing detergent in a spray bottle.  Then you douse the stain with the mixture within 20 minutes of mixing it up.  When it dries, the stain and smells are gone.  (What did people do before baking soda?)

Wednesday night

Friday night, night two of Operation Bucket Filling

Ferrel no more?

Monkeys only on the pajamas.