Her First "Real" P*unishment

Caitlyn got her first real p*unishsment yesterday night. I say real only because up until now, she has only ever recieved time outs and an ocassional spsanking here and there. And by spsanking, I mean that she has gotten her butt tapped one time on only a handful of ocassions.

Last night as I was cleaning up toys, I was putting the bazillion pieces of Polly Pocket Dolls in the Polly Pocket suitcase that had to be purchased to contain the bits that are in fact produced by the devil (that sure is one hell of a run on sentence isn't it???) As I was cleaning up the pieces from hell, I discovered 2 heads of the dolls in the suitcase. The heads were certainly not attached to the bodies they belonged with. Flashes of serial killers immediately run through my mind. I mean, isn't that how they all start out? Ripping the heads off of dolls, or torturing small animals. I quickly scan the room to make sure that the cats are still alive. (Yes I know, Marten is anything but a small animal...but he's smaller than her finally.) Both cats are alive and well.

I turn to Cate and ask her how this happened. Of course she blamed it on Kelly. Who in their right mind wouldn't blame this act on another child. I call my mother and tell her what Kelly has done. I also tell her that I am not so much concerned with the act of ripping the heads of, but I am more concerned with the lack of respect for toys that I spend my hard earned money on (sounds grown up like doesn't it!). I tell my mom that she needs to let Kelly know that if I ever see anything like this again, they will not be getting toys from me...ever!

After I hang up, I ask Cate what happened with the toys. She retells the same story that Kelly gave. Well, to an extent. Only she leaves herself out of the bad parts. Kelly said that they were playing with them together and she was pulling the heads off. Which resulted in Cate's hysterical laughter. Cate says that Kelly just pulled the heads off. Here's the troubling part of the conversation:

Mom: Did you ask Kelly to stop doing that to your toys?

Cate: Yes (nodding hesitantly)

Mom: Were you laughing when Kelly was doing this?

Cate: No (shaking head hesitantly)

Mom: Are you lying to me?

Cate: blank stare with tears welling in her eyes.

Mom: Answer me. Did you ask her to stop?

Cate: Shakes her head no.

Mom: Were you laughing?

Cate: Nods her head yes.

Now, I have no patience for liars. Really, I don't. And this isn't even something major that she needed to lie about. She wasn't going to get in any kind of trouble if she had just told me the truth. Add this to the fact that she lied to me a couple weeks ago and got caught. It makes for one pissed off mother.

I tell her that she needs to come and sit next to me on the couch so that we can talk some about this. I go through the whol "boy who cried wolf" scenarios and tell her why it is bad to lie and how I may not believe her one day when it is really necessary for me to believe her. Now the tears come....fast...furious! Heavy breathing, the kind where I am almosst certain she is going to hyperventilate and pass out in 8.7 secondss flat. Before we continue the conversation, I make her calm down.

After she calms, I ask her what she thinks her p*unishment should be. Man I used to hate when my mom asked me that question. The most obvious answer is no punishment at all, that I will never do the stupid act again. But I find myself asking anyway. To which she prompltly responds.... "A time out."

I tell her no. To which she is utterly shocked. I let her know that this can't be her p*unishment as it was the p*unishment that I gave when she was caught lying a couple of weeks ago and obviously that doesn't stop her from lying.

At this point, I am at a loss for what p*unishment I really should give her. Whcih kind of made me giggle on the inside. So I call Matt into the room. While he is aware of the situation, he has not participated in any of the discussion. I ask him what he thinks the p*unishment should be. He immediately has an answer (which impresses me tremendously!). He says that she should take her bath without playing and go straight to bed. Not a big deal really, until he said this..."And she isn't watching her shows before bed. She can just go straight to sleep."

Now, asking Cate to go straight to bed without watching some Spongebob is like ripping her toenails out one by one with pliers. When she hears this, the sobbing begins all over again. Once again, I get her to calm down and she asks me if she can at least have music on. There's that need for noise that has been with her since the NICU that appears it will never leave. I agree to it, Matt is a little peeved that I do, but I explain to him that she has never liked silence in bed. He agrees.

For the remainder of the evening, she is repeating how she wishes that she could erase this and she wishes it never happened, etc. To all of these comments, my response was

"The next time you think about lying to Mommy, I want you to remember exactly how you feel this very moment. Maybe that will stop you from doing it again."

(Nice huh!)

I must say that I felt like complete shit the entire evening for doing it to her. And I was on the verge of just talking to her and giving in several times. Thankfully, I had to drive mom to work so Matt was home to put her in bed. He had to be the one to enforce it. And he was fantastic at it!! I thanked him profusely for being the one to "stay sstrong" in the situation as I was so ready to cave in.

Hopefully she has learned her lesson. Although, I am still going to zing her the next time we are shopping and she asks for a toy. I will quickly remind her that she enjoyed destroying her toys and tell her that I am not sure I sshould buy them for her. And then, if Matt isn't with us, I will probably cave and buy her the stupid toy anyway!