Time Out! A Funny Jane Story

Playing dress up in Dad’s clothes

Our kids, like all kids, are sometimes naughty and need to be punished. One punishment that has worked well for Jane is getting toys thrown away. Not put away, but thrown away, permanently. It might sound harsh, but I believe that different kids work best with different punishments. When she does something that she knows very well she’s not supposed to do, tossing one of her toys seems to really resinate with her.

We’ve mentioned before that both the kids sleep and nap in the back of the RV in the same little bed. Together! Jane doesn’t always nap, but she still needs the rest and quiet time. And quiet frankly so do we.

She knows that waking Wilson up is a huge No-No. For the most part, she’s been great about it. I can’t recall her ever waking him up at night. Nap time is occasionally a bit of a different story.

Last week she woke him up and he really needed his rest. We were able to get him back down. However, Mark was so frustrated after telling her many times to not wake Wilson up that he decided she needed two punishments.

1) She had to sit next to him on the front bench seat of the RV while he blogged. She had to sit there until Wilson woke up from his nap. She wasn’t allowed to read or talk. She just had to sit there.

I was reading my book on the other bench. Wilson slept another hour and a half so this was really hard for her. But she did it.

2) She had to throw away her beloved “Paw-Patrol” coloring book.

As it was going in the trash, Mark was reiterating why it was being trashed and said “If you wake up Wilson again, what are we going to throw out next time? Think about it. You don’t want to lose something else.” Poor, sweet Jane with tear filled eyes said “Well, I don’t know what we’ll throw away because I don’t really have very much toys left.”

It took every ounce of self control not to laugh, hard. I covered my face and silently laughed until I almost cried. She’s right. While they have enough toys, for sure, they don’t have very many. It’s going to be pretty hard to pick a sacrificial lamb from the few they have in a single Rubbermaid bin. Lets hope for good behavior!