Lemon Juice

A couple years ago, Jeff and I took a parenting class. The man who was the teacher supports spanking. He suggests using an object, like a wooden spoon, rather than your hand. It serves as a visual cue and you don't use the same hand to love and punish. Carson has never actually been spanked, but he is scared to death of the wooden spoon. All it took was demonstrating on a chair what it means to be spanked, and he knows he never wants one. He will immediately shape up.
This week, my sister's family in town. On Friday Ann Bennett had a sour mouth so she got a squirt of lemon juice. Carson was watching as this happened. Since he was being super whinny and ugly, I told him he could get it too. He has now added lemon juice to his crying. He would not even come close to Rene' for a few minutes because he was afraid she would squirt lemon juice at him too. On the way home that night, Carson brought the lemon juice up again. I told him he would only get it if he had an ugly mouth. Then I told him we would have to buy some lemon juice at the store. At that point he told me "I think there is a store that doesn't have lemon juice." The conversation continued for a moment talking about Publix selling food not juice. It was very cute. Now, it appears we have 2 threats for getting Carson to cooperate.