Timeout

This is Theodore executing, perfectly, a timeout. Notice in his left hand is his trusty sidekick, McQueen. I put these pictures up because they’re cute and they also reflect an illustration of behavior.

If we give Theodore a timeout, he accepts it. He will even walk himself over to the corner, without crying, and tuck his head into the corner as closely as he can manage. Once he is in the corner with his buried into the wood cabinets, he then will call for Mommy or Daddy and ask for a ‘huggy’. He whines a little bit but doesn’t look around or move his head. He takes his punishment. He is there in the corner for maybe two minutes before being released. When he comes away from the corner he always needs to give me a big hug and we have a nice little chat. He promises to be a good boy and apologizes to whomever needs to receive one. He is a good boy, and very cute.

Then there’s Jacqueline. She will kick, scream, fight, and even verbally lobby on behalf of herself to avoid, delay, or reduce her punishment. However, she will take it and usually tries to make it in to a production of the most recent show running through her mind at the time. If she’s assisted to her location, her legs almost instantly turn to Jell-O and standing becomes near impossible. But kneeling in the corner still gets her thinking about the roundhouse right hand she just landed to the back of an unsuspecting Theodore. Eventually she will stand and never quite seems to get right into the corner, geometry is not a strong suit yet. You can see in her body language (below) that she is entirely overjoyed, and completely underwhelmed by Dad’s choice to separate her from her brother who took the punch like it was a fly buzzing by his ear. Usually, upon her release she will give me a big hug which is generally accompanied by a speech she’s prepared in a dialect that is constantly changing but is never discernible until the last word or two. She does apologize to whomever needs to hear it, but physically it appears to take it’s toll on her to do so. Many of these apologies come with body language that would make you think she had just run a marathon or is just coming out of some trouble recovering from anesthesia. Very tiring I guess. Either way she is beautiful and she’s a good girl. We have a pair of well-behaved, thoughtful, beautiful twins. We are so thankful for the twins, and all of our kids.