Valentine's Day: True love and Time-outs

How was your Valentine's Day? We had an interesting day at our house.

As far as Greg and I, it was great. We both got what we wanted. I woke up to discover thoughtful gifts from the hubby displayed on the kitchen table (including my favorite chocolates, a sweet hand-written letter, and a DVD). Later, Kensie and I made homemade cards, picked up Taco Bell and surprised Greg at work for a lunch visit.

Grandma Mulder even stopped by and gave Kensie a sweet Valentine doggie to add to her stuffed animal collection.

And that night we hung out with our college friends and their kids, all while laughing and taking pics of our growing families.....

The day finished after Kensie was put to bed, while sitting on the couch together, Greg pulled out a black box with a beautiful bracelet inside. This guy doesn't buy jewelry very often, so it was definitely a sweet surprise! We reminisced about past Valentine days and celebrated how far we've come. We were in love.



Kensie's day was a bit different.

Between all the "fun" activities and surprises, she just didn't seem like herself. Clingy. Fussy. Deliberately disobeying. Running after me as soon as I left the room, and grabbing both knees as she wedged her head between them. I couldn't even do my make-up without her throwing herself on the ground crying. At first I blamed her cold, her teeth, coming off a weekend away from "mama and dada". But, frankly....she just threw fits for no reason. There was no reasoning, or distractions, or ANYTHING I could do to make it stop. So frustrating.

I finally decided it was time to implement our first "time-out". At first, I picked her up from the bathroom floor where she was currently throwing a fit, and plopped her in the hallway on her bottom. I thought a firm, "Kensie, that is ENOUGH!" would do it.

NOPE.

So, I picked her up and plopped her in her bedroom on the middle of the rug and said, "Kensie, that is ENOUGH!" I shut the door until it clicked and stood outside listening to what she would do.

The fit increased for about a minute, and then she (finally!) started to calm down. I could hear her sucking her fingers and mumbling. After about 1 more minute, I opened the door to conclude the time-out. She was standing next to her crib--one hand in her mouth, and the other hand reaching through the slats of her crib stroking her stuffed animals on the other side. It seemed to work!

While we still battled a few more fits throughout the day, they got progressively better. And honestly, she has been an angel ever since. All week. Seriously. I don't know if it was the time-out...but it appears that way.

Do you give time-outs?