One Step Ahead
My 4 year old son C is still a ball of energy. From the moment he wakes up to the moment he lays his head down, he is a blur. This past weekend, we needed to make the impossible happen - get him to sit still and quietly for about 3 hours until my 6 year old daughter E could do her two performances (one before intermission and one after intermission).
During the first half of the performance, C could barely sit still. He brought a stuffed animal along to play with, but it didn’t keep him entertained. He kept getting in and out of his chair. My wife and I kept talking to him in between each dance to let him know how many turns it was to get to his sister and that seemed to help him stay settled for a bit. He was trying his best to count to the number he needed to get to so he could see his sister. When E was finally on stage, C was happy to see her and luckily for us, intermission was shortly after that.
During intermission, my wife ended up buying some Skittles for C to eat so he could stay quiet. She gave him the whole pack, but after a few, I took it from C and decided we needed to run some energy out. My thinking was that C would tear through the pack now, so I wanted to slow him down a bit. I also wanted to run him up and down the stairs so he would get really tired (and hopefully stay settled for longer). Each set of stairs we ran, he would get one Skittle so we could stretch them until the second half of the performance.
To my surprise, C had tons of energy even after soccer this morning. We must have ran up around 10 times and I got really sweaty. We would race up the stairs to see who was fastest and it was a split between who won. Then we would walk down and C would grab a Skittle. He was also tired when intermission was over and we found our seats. I thought my plan worked beautifully and that I was a few steps ahead since he was sitting quietly while eating his Skittles. That lasted for about 15 minutes and my wife ended up giving C her phone so he could type emojis into a note app. I tried my best I make intermission fun and it looks like my wife was the one who was a step ahead. At least I got some exercise in!
