"sorry"

today we had quite the battle with little miss kyri. she has not had the best of listening ears lately and obeying mom and dad has not been her top priority. when she was in her highchair tonight eating dinner, she decided to throw her black beans all over the floor. she has been doing this a lot lately and we are constantly having to tell her no and explain to her why food doesn't go on the floor. kyri knows the word "sorry" but it isn't a part of her regular vocabulary.

as she continued to through black beans, one by one, on the floor, we decided to have an intervention. we removed her tray and pushed her chair to he corner, turning her away from mom and dad (this is our way of implementing time out at this stage). she had a temper tantrum for about 5 minutes until kevin went over and talked to her. he kept saying to her, "kryi, you need to say sorry to mommy and daddy for disobeying. you do not through food on the floor." this only made her more mad. i came over and sat down on the chair in front of her. i began to try and calm her down, as snot is running down onto her top lip. i tried, "kryi, can you say sorry to mommy for throwing food on the floor?" for some reason, hearing that word made her soooo mad! she would stop crying, ask for a hug, wipe her nose, talk about mickey mouse (as i confirmed that mickey says sorry too), and then she would break out into tears again when she couldn't get out of her chair. the word "sorry" was not going to come out of her mouth! this went on and on and on...and on.

after bout 45 minutes of sitting with her and talking with her, she starting to kiss my lips over and over. she was asking for hug after hug and just loving on mama. after asking her for the millionth time, "kyri, you need to say sorry to mommy," i finally heard the word, "sorry." she said it into my ear about 4 times in her very sweet, small voice as she was holding onto me tightly. i knew it was sincere and she got it. some of you may be thinking, 45 minutes? your crazy! it was totally worth it. it wasn't like she was throwing a fit the entire time. she would go in and out of being mad, but we didn't want to give in. kyri needs to know that apologizing, especially when you disobey, is very important to kevin and i. when she chooses to disobey, we need to have consequences. time out isn't enough. she needs to say "sorry" and have time for us to love on her so that she knows we only do this for one reason...because we love her more than she will ever know.