Trouble
About three weeks ago, Henry started going through a hitting stage. Sometimes he has trouble finding the words to express his anger or his sadness, so he would ball up his fist and give us a thump on the arm or on our side instead. He didn't do it hard, and we understood where it was coming from, but we wanted to make sure that he got the point that this was not acceptable behavior. So, instead of time-outs, we told him we would take his drum set away for one whole day every time he hit one of us. The next we put the rule into effect and naturally, he didn't see that drum set for three days. He's a quick study though, and he got the point.
About a week later, Henry, Holly, and I were playing in the living room and something happened that resulted in me breaking one of our rules. Henry told me with great glee that I had been naughty and that I wasn't allowed to play my ukulele for one whole day. Then he looked at me expectantly, waiting for my reaction, but I told him he was right. He shot off the couch grabbed my case and while I was distracted by playing with Holly, he hid my ukulele.
Yet another week later I realized he had never given my uke back to me. I went searching high and low all over the house, on two separate occasions, and couldn't find it. I mentioned it to him when he came home from school and he informed me I could have it the next day. It once again slipped our minds until this evening when the three of us were in his room having "music lessons"*. I asked him where it was and he told me to wait there, that he would get it for me. Once again I was distracted by Holly, playing, dinner, bathtime, life in general, and it slipped my mind until I just sat down on the couch and noticed that it was back in its rightful position in the living room.
We live in a small house. There are only so many places he could have put it. Where was he hiding it? It's driving me a little nuts.
* "music lessons" consist of listening to the Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, Somebody's Watching Me, and This Is Halloween. I've now heard these four songs more times than I care to think about.