Trying a new path

Sometimes Mason stays in his bed all night. Most of the time, he doesn't. For a while we had success bribing him with gum. If he stayed in his bed all night (so that mom could stay in hers) then he could have a piece of gum in the morning. This worked okay, except I noticed he would often ask if he'd done it or not. It made me realize he didn't always have awareness about what was going on at night.

Here's where poor parenting has made things worse. Sometimes we get lazy.
When he comes in at night, it's often easier to just let him stay. I swear Mason has some sort of sixth sense about when we're the most tired and out of it and that's when he makes his move.

Also, when Eli has gone to bed and we're wrapping up the day, it's nice to spend some one on one time with Mason. The negative effect of it is that he doesn't always fall asleep in his bed. Sometimes it will be on the couch as we read or visit. Sometimes it's watching sports or documentaries with Dad. I know that he needs to be in his bed to stay in his bed. I'm admitting here that we don't always do the best thing.

And here's the kicker. Little brother Eli is opposite. He has a set bedtime, a predictable routine, and sleeps pretty great. Shocker! but Eli has always been like that so it's been easy to stick with the pattern. Mason has always struggled with sleep. Their personalities are different and I know that has something to do with it, but it seems obvious that our little habits have produced predictable results, one on each end of the spectrum.

Here's our latest idea. We've been talking a lot about roads and paths lately, as in "I hope you choose a happy path" or "Let's find a way to get off this bumpy grumpy road". I made Mace a chart for bedtime. We put it on magnetic board and he can move his little head along the path as we go. It feels like a lot of steps to walk him through but the first thing that changed was that he was excited to keep working towards bedtime instead of dreading and complaining the closer bedtime got. By the end of the road he was in bed, without an accompanying parent, and staying there!

It hasn't been perfect, but certainly so much better. When we put in the time and effort to go through the process with him, we see results.

Johnny Law and The Peacemaker

Once, after Jason received an unfair (and pricey) ticket, I said I don't like cops. That's confusing to Mason so I borrowed the Johnny Law concept from my brother. I don't know exactly what Ben tells his kids but I think the general idea is that Johnny Law is the cop we don't like. He's the one that pulls over nice people and gives them tickets. Other police men are great and helpful but you gotta watch out for that Johnny Law. In typical sensitive Mason fashion, Mason always worries about the bad guy (including Laban and Satan). He's always asking about Johnny Law. Does he have a family? Is he happy? Why doesn't he want to be a good guy?

When we see police cars Mason asks if it's Johnny Law. If he doesn't want to sit in his car seat, we tell him Johnny Law will get us. Anyway, Jason and the boys came to help me set up at the Preparedness Expo. One of the other booths was my former employer, Lifetouch. They took this picture of Mason with an officer. I can't tell from his funny expression how he feels about this situation.

Lately I've been teaching Mason about being a peacemaker. He's grown up enough to understand choosing the right and being fair. It's a more complex idea to teach him to be a good person even when other people (ahem Eli) aren't being nice or when things aren't fair. There have been some great moments though, when I see him choosing to be a peacemaker. Usually anything Eli has, Mason thinks he should get. These two boys really get battling for toys just because they think the other brother wants it. On Sunday Mason gave the toy he was playing with to Eli to help him be happy and quiet in church. It was a small action but I can see how Mason is learning and growing up.

Today I got a call from Mason's teacher. She wanted to let me know there had been a fight at school involving Mason. She wasn't sure what all had happened and it was over quickly. She said Mason had been hit in the face pretty hard . I anxiously waited for his bus to arrive and ran out to meet him. No blood, bruises, or broken bones.

I asked him what happend. (By the way, Mason never tells me about school. Sometimes I bribe him for information. However, he'll tell Jason all sorts of details. Sometimes I eves drop from the other room so I can feel informed.) Mason said a boy named Atticus punched him in the nose.

What did you do?
When I asked Mason this question, I was torn as to what I wanted the answer to be. I know how I really want him to act. That's why I teach him about Jesus and reinforce his good behavior. I will also admit that if I heard he hit the boy back I wouldn't have been mad. Is that horrible? I know fighting isn't the answer, but I want him to know he doesn't have to take it. I want him to stand up for himself. I want him to stand up for others. I don't know how to teach him how to appropriately do that, especially when he's such a tender kid naturally. 

The answer was: Nothing. I asked him if he cried and he said yes. I asked him if he will still be nice to Atticus and he said yes with a look that said "why wouldn't I?"

I'm not dead yet

Last week, while cleaning out the fish tank, I was worried I may have hurt the fish. After putting Spazz back in my fears were confirmed. He floated, sideways, for the longest time. We kept finding him in this position and many times warned Mason that his fish wasn't doing well. But day after day that funky little fish just kept swimming. We'd find him "playing dead" until we tapped on the glass or fed him and which time he'd come to. I was starting to think we could capitalize on his strange trick when low and behold today, he didn't snap out of it.

I could tell Mason thought he was supposed to feel bad but he seemed more curious. He wanted to be the one to dump Spazz in the toilet and the one to flush. He also wanted to hold my hand while we sang "I had a little turtle". Glub glub.

Later when Miss D was over she asked if she could feed the fish. We had to tell her the unfortunate news. Mason explained "He ran out of batteries".