Project Tantrums: Day 4

Yesterday my focus, resolve, and motivation began to slip. I think chronicling my progress here will be the difference between continuing the project and letting it slowly die. Yesterday I spent the day getting the house ready for a financial class My Hero leads every Thursday evening. It's a few hours worth of work to vacuum, dust, wash the floors, clean the bathroom, make cookies, set up chairs and projector and DVD player. But sprinkle in the daily tasks related to raising three little ones, and it's an intense day. I did not have Peanut Butter's tantrums as my first priority, and I was not as alert and quick to end them as I need to be.

Today I will:
stop Peanut Butter's wailing tone immediately when I hear it begin. When it starts because someone does something he doesn't like, I will stop him and have him voice the problem in a normal voice, or ask the person (Christopher Robin or I, whichever one of us it is) nicely to stop.
take Peanut Butter with me to help me with an interesting task whenever I sense a tantrum begin.
encourage both boys to be strong and not let the naughty noises out when they are denied something they wanted. I wish I had a story or something to give them, especially Christopher Robin, an internal motivation to be strong.

I also plan to spend the day doing fun things together. The house is clean, after all. Currently Christopher Robin's favorite thing is opening his math book and doing a page. There's no writing, just introduction of basic math concepts with big colorful pictures, and it's interactive between him and I (Three people are on a picnic. Who's going? He answers, "Uncle Micah, Uncle Thane, and Peanut Butter." Okay. How many of these apples will each person get? Let's give one to Uncle Micah, now one to Uncle Thane, and now one to Peanut Butter.) Peanut Butter's favorite activity to do with me is to bring me books to read to him. So we'll do lots of that, and maybe even play some wii. That's truly Christopher Robin's most favorite pass time, and we have the rule that we only play it when Daddy's home. Otherwise it would be on all day long. It makes Christopher Robin anxious to see his daddy every evening, and he even told My Hero the other day that he wishes he would stay home with them all day instead of Mommy.