keeping it real

So Fudge has been driving me insane this week, no surprise there I know. On Wednesday night I finally hit the wall with him. The night before he got up in the night and drank water so that he would wet the bed, yes he does it on purpose and last time warned him that I was done with this little behaviour of his. So my response this time (because this was time 742) was to wrap every bit of bedding he has in garbage bags so he was surrounded by plastic. Plastic is noisy when you toss and turn, so for well over an hour he tossed and turned every 2 seconds. I told him to stop a few dozen times and he kept it up. Calvin was passed frustrated at this point and so I hauled Fudge out of bed and made him stand in the hallway till I was calm enough to talk to him. It had been a really long day on my own as P works late on Wed. and the tossing and turning was the last straw.

To make a long story short. I went downstairs to calm myself down.  When I was calm I came back and talked him through what was going on and why he was choosing to break the rules and ignore me. I brought up a number of things from the last few days including the drinking water. He told me he was ignoring me and breaking the rules because he did not like our rules and he did not care about them. This is probably pretty close to the truth as he chooses to ignore me every chance he gets. I was pretty frustrated and then I had an idea, I took his shirt off him, got a Sharpie and wrote the following message, "Mom, I do not have to listen to you or follow your rules." Then I put the shirt back on him and told them now he would not have to show me that he was not interested in listening to me by breaking the rules he could just wear the shirt.

He was speechless.

I hugged him, told him I loved him even if he did not follow the rules and sent him to bed.

Yesterday when he was outside I took the shirt and added to it " Fudge, I love you even when you choose not to listen to me or follow my rules because you are my son and I will always love you no matter what. Love Mom xoxo." When he noticed he came to find me, thoroughly excited that I had written more. He got the point.

To keep things fair I wrote on for Calvin too, after the oatmeal incident I did not want him to be jealous. His says " I love you too Calvin! PS Only Mom's can write on clothes." He was happy to be included in his Mom's crazy behaviour.

Gotta keep things moving and changing because if they are to predictable they can manipulate the outcome more easily. I don't know if Fudge's Chinese water torture will continue but yesterday was a lot better and I have my fingers crossed for today.

10 more days till school starts.