Stuck with the Kid

This was going to be called "Fun with the Mizz" until dinner started. Right now he's sitting at the table wondering why spitting out his food and screaming his freaking head off might have driven Daddy away. Seriously, I mean the insanely loud high pitched scream that makes my ears ring from down the hall. Since he was strapped into the chair, it was easier to take a time out by leaving him and walking away. I'm just around the corner, but he doesn't know that. Any other response just made him laugh, and since hauling off and clocking him is obviously not in my plans, a break was in order. I'm sure he'll be okay soon enough, but I'm not about to guess a time table.

The rest of the day wasn't bad really. We had a break in the rain so we wandered to the zoo this morning. He had a great time "hikin ina backpack." We had lunch there and he still wanted to see more aneemals. So we checked out the elephants and saw the beginning of the bird of prey show and he conked out like a light before we even got out of the amphitheater. He ended up taking a great nap and then we went to the mall so he could run around in a dry playground. He's still apparently got some work to do on the whole "I NEED SPACE" thing. Any time other kids got near him, he yelled it at them. On a rainy Portland afternoon, you can imagine how often that happened. Anyway, he had a good time there and everything was good until dinner.

He seems to have stopped spitting and screaming after spitting and screaming and the saying "No spitting no screaming." Now he's alternating between pretend crying/saying "I cryin," and chanting "bad behavor." I think something might have sunk in. I'll go save him now.

[Some time goes by.]

Sorry for the whining. It's a little hard to think with your ears ringing though. The Mizz and I made up, which means that he stopped screaming, but I only managed to get crackers and cheese into him for dinner on top of the 4 rotinis that I actually got into him before the crisis. Better than going to bed hungry, I guess, but I'm hardly putting it in my top 10 parenting moments list. Somewhere, lots of people, but mainly Franny and Tutu, can hardly stop laughing at me long enough to breath. Rest assured it probably wasn't as bad as I might have made it out to be and was a rather minor moment in an otherwise fine couple of days. (For the record, I never actually considered "clocking him", which I would hope everyone understood. Part of the reason I had to take a break was that I was having a hard time not laughing, which wasn't helping anything.) I was actually expecting more of this, so I should feel lucky, I suppose. Anyway, I'm sure I'll live.