The Ultimate Evening.

Back when Hubster and I were dating long distance, a client asked me to show her step son around town. Ok. Fine. He, knowing absolutely nothing about me or my relationship, spent the evening trying to convince me that the love of my life was cheating on me, and promised to show me 'The Ultimate Evening.' So of course I told the bartender to hold the alcohol on any and every drink I ordered, no matter what I said, and to charge him top shelf prices. Then I went home and called my future Hubster and we laughed and laughed. Fast forward twelve years (!?) later and we still laugh about 'The Ultimate Evening.'

1-2-3 Choose!

I hate tantrums. My son hates tantrums. And yet, here we are living in tantrum central. I know all three year olds have tantrums, but my kid is like Dr. Jekl and Mr. Hyde: normal days are really quite manageable, CSID reaction days (when he feels like he has the stomach flu) are hellish. But since we're going to be living with it for a long, long time, we have to find a way to maintain good behavior.

We've tried many, MANY different tantrum taming tricks (ignoring, 'asked and answered', redirection, and on and on) they have not worked for us. In desperate moments we've even tried spanking, and *News Flash* it does not work-and it teaches him to hit in anger, and it leaves me feels like the worst. Yikes.

But you know what my three year old absolutely LOVES?

CHOICES.