Delayed Reaction

Our first born son has been a handful lately. (Handful is actually putting it MILDLY!) As E and I discussed A's behavior last night, we started to come to the realization that he may be having a delayed reaction to Isaac.

Up to this point, Isaac has just been another warm body. Attached to me in the sling most of the time, barely making a peep. But, lately, he's been cooing, and laughing, and needing a bit more quiet and calm in the house to sleep. So, to sum it up, Isaac needs more attention now.

A somehow, sometime, decided that HE needed more attention, too. Pooping in his pants, tearing off the covers at nap time, getting out of bed repeatedly, pulling all of his clothes out of the drawers and wiping said poop in pants, etc, etc, etc.

The last few days have been miserable! Absolutely miserable! Today, however, is a brand new day! We are going to start a new "thing". Since most of this behavior happens at nap time and bedtime, we're going to just start with that. We'll give him 10 pennies at the start of nap time to put in his pocket. If I come in and see that he is out of bed, he loses a penny. If I come in and he's gotten into something, he loses a penny for getting out of bed and a penny for getting into stuff. If he poops in his pants, he loses a penny. (just a little note here, we don't normally try to correct "accidents" with any form of discipline, etc. However, these are beyond accidents. He has access to the potty and I have never gotten after him for getting out of bed to go potty. ) After every nap time, he gets to put his remaining pennies in a jar. When he fills up the jar, he will be able to do an activity of his choice (we will decide this before we start with the penny stuff. That way he'll know what he's trying to achieve! It'll probably be something Dino related...)

So, that's the plan. E is even coming home today at lunch today to help. I'm just praying that it works.