Really??

Today I went to the grocery store with Jake. He was so good the whole time until we were walking out the door and he saw the cart that was shaped like a car. You know the carts I'm talking about? They have little seats in the front for your child to "drive" the cart, and it comes complete with a steering wheel and race car sticker on the side. Jake (surprise, surpise) loves this cart, so whenever we get the chance, we take that cart to do our shopping in. This time, the cart wasn't available until we were leaving. After we had gone through the check-out line, he saw the special cart sitting there and started yelling, "CAR!! CAR!!" as loud as he could. I cringed inside because I knew exactly where this was heading. I had a full cart of groceries that I was anxious to get home, and a very, very, very excited little boy who was going to have a meltdown if I tried to leave. So, in order to try to smooth over the situation, I let him take a quick look at the car. He wanted to get inside, but I told him we were going to go home. Jake started shaking his head and said, "No, no, no," and I said, "Yep, it's time to go bye-bye." That's when things started to get out of control.

Jake started crying and I took that as a cue to exit the store as quickly as possible. I put my head down, as to aviod the judgmental looks of the incoming shoppers, and raced out of there. This was easier said than done. By this time Jake was in full-blown fit mode, and I was trying to carry him out of the store while his legs were flailing and push my cart full of groceries at the same time, all the while trying desperately to avoid any eye-contact with those who were staring at us. Eventually Jake stopped flailing and straight up hit me in the face. I about lost it right there. I put him into the cart, strapped him in, told him we don't hit mommy, and listened to his cries of protest all the way to the car.

Once in the car, Jake's cries were not subsiding. Eventually I looked at him and said, in my most threatening voice, "Jake, do you need a time out?"

"Yeah," he quietly replied.

And then, he stopped crying. Just like that. Now, mind you, we haven't put the "time-out" rule in place yet. Some of his friends have been introduced to the time-out chair, but as of yet, we haven't had to deal with it. Therefore, he's seen his friends use it, but we don't have one at our house. But I figured, if that's what he wants, then so be it!

He was silent all the rest of the way home. We got home, and first thing I did was find a chair to use as a time-out chair. Jake was beyond excited about this. I introduced him to the time-out spot, and had him sit down, and he was beaming at me the whole time. We had a (albeit short) discussion about not hitting mommy and throwing fits, he sat there for about 10 seconds, then gave me a kiss and got up as happy as could be.

And so the "time-out" chair came to be. Or, as we say in Montessori, the "control your body" chair. Either way, he seems to be thrilled about it. We'll see how long this lasts!

P.S. I have Christmas pictures coming soon, I just wanted to share this little story with you. ;)