New solutions

Brennan has really been challenging us.  He climbs everything and will do it over and over again.  I realized that I was saying "no" to him all day and I really don't want to do that.  It's draining on me and he doesn't listen anyway.  Dan's approach is that he really needs to "learn" and there's no way to do it but to teach him.  My approach has always been, even with Sara, to rearrange the house so that it's more kid friendly and then when you are able to communicate with them better later on, teach them then.

I tried Dan's approach for the last two week and I'd had enough.  Brennan has learned to climb up the kitchen chairs and on top of the kitchen table, and wreak havoc on anything up there.  He's been able to dump over juice pitchers, get makers and crayons which he later used to color walls, scissors and even knives that had been left on the table.  It's just not a place for him to be.  So I told him "no" every time he climbed a chair and every time he stared to climb on the table I'd tell him no again and then put him in his crib for time out.  After doing this maybe 20 or 30 times during the day I was tired and he was angry.

Instead I went back to doing it my way.  I put all the chairs in the den over the carpet isolated so he can't climb onto anything dangerous.  In effect building Brennan and obstacle course.  I was amazed how it turned something really negative into something fun and positive.  The kids love playing on all the chairs.  They spend most of the day climbing them, jumping, playing with their toys on them, putting blankets on the chars, and so forth.  Brennan will come right to the edge and jump off into your arms over and over, he thinks it's a fun game.  So the past few days we rearrange the chairs into different obstacle courses.

It's been nice no to have to tell him no over and over and put him in time out, which I think he's really too young to learn anyway.  He just wants to climb.   Is it convenient to have all our chairs in the living room? No not at all.  It does such to have to drag them back and forth when we need them, but it beats the alternative in my opinion.

Today it was 65 degrees which is insane the end of Nov, thanks global warming.  We all played in the back yard in shorts and t-shirts.  Brennan loves to climb up on Sara's slide and play and slide down.  That satisfies some of his climbing urge too, so I was glad the weather accommodated it.

I hope that I can find other solutions like this to things he shouldn't be doing and turn them into something positive because he climbs up everything, nothing in the house is safe again.

He loves  his little "lawn mower" as we call it that he got from Granny KP for his b'day.  He pushes it all over the house and carries things in it, he has even learned to use it as a scooter which is really cute too.