Welcome to life with a 3 year-old

What a weekend. On Saturday Scott went to Oshkosh for the great outdoor festival, so I decided to take Caleb to the park for a picnic, followed by a few hours at the zoo. We arranged to meet my friend Eryn and her 9 month old son Drew there, but they weren't able to make it until the afternoon. The picnic went well, although it was a dumb idea to take Caleb for a picnic at the playground....why eat when you can play! It was a wonderful day and I am so glad we didn't just sit at home and watch TV. The only draw back was that Caleb didn't get his nap until after 4:00. He slept for over 3 hours and then went to bed at his normal time, but his schedule was thrown for a real loop.

Sunday we went to a birthday party for one of his friends in the neighborhood, Josie, and had a great time. Came home and had a quick visit with his grandparents who stopped by to drop off his birthday gifts. Didn't get down for a nap until after 4:00 again, but this time it was disastrous. He slept for little more than an hour and woke up crabby and whiny and just plain hard to live with. We tried to get him to eat dinner with us, that resulted in a tantrum. We told him he couldn't watch TV while we ate dinner, that resulted in a tantrum. He wanted water but when we brought it in a red cup instead of a blue cup, he threw a tantrum. Get the picture? So, before I had even finished my dinner, I took him upstairs to get him into his PJs and ready for bed, even though it was only 7:00. Really had to fight him but I knew he was so over tired that I managed to not loose my cool. Tried tucking him into bed, but that resulted in a tantrum the escalated to a MEGA tantrum. This was very scary, and behavior we haven't seen from him before. He was throwing himself around and screeching at the top of his lungs. We basically tried to ignore him, but it just wasn't getting any better. Finally, Scott crawled into bed with him and was able to get him calmed down slowly. He eventually passed out and slept the whole night peacefully. Note to self: NEVER LET CALEB GO TWO DAYS IN A ROW WITH REALLY LATE NAPS!

One week from today Caleb turns 3. We are already experiencing the independent streak, the stubbornness and smart mouth. I am scared by the concept of discipline, because I know there are 1001 ways to do it wrong. We are currently using the time-out method and have recently added a timer. He has to sit on the step for 3 minutes before he can be done with the timeout. That is working pretty we actually. Whining is a HUGE problem, but when we tell him to stop, he usually does. I know there are many things we are doing right, I just hope they out number the things we are screwing up.