On "babies" and discipline

Jackson was crackin' me up tonight. After dinner, he started carrying a towel around, pretending it was his baby, Moses. He changed the baby's diaper, kissed the boo-boo's on his toes when I accidentally sat on him (the towel not Jackson)--only after requiring that I apologize (to the towel), and even nursed the baby--by pulling up his shirt and cradling Moses against his bosom.

It was so cool to watch his imagination in action. During his play, Jackson showed quite the nurturing instinct. At one point in the evening, he asked me to intervene during a harrowing incident involving Cooper and a swinging bat, saying, "He's gonna die (kill) my baby." I did and therefore the crisis was averted.

Since we seem to be in constant discipline-mode around here lately, it is inevitable that a couple of funnies would occur during the, um, debriefings, if you will. The first was a couple of days ago, when we were trying to get Jackson to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between his actions and their results. We have said something similar many times before, but we were explaining that his disobedience has consequences. He quickly piped up, "I don't like those. I don't like consetwations."

Tonight, after a long afternoon of having to correct/redirect/discipline Jackson, I was having a heart-to-heart with him about what my role in his disobedience is and what I feel when he disobeys (it's actually a weighty concept to explain to a four-year-old; further complicated by the fact that he sees me sometimes respond out of anger, which is the wrong response). He was really trying to understand what I was saying; showing genuine concern, he looked into my eyes while rubbing my arm and said, "Did I push your buttons, Mom?"

♦