The Art of the "D" Word (Discipline)

The brilliant centerpiece on the table looked colorful but hardly appetizing. Nothing about a soggy slice of bread doused in ketchup made me salivate. My toddler had been at work again - creating masterpiece food art using contents of the refrigerator as a medium. Let's see - last week he made scratch art with a screwdriver and my coffee table. Prior to that, he made bang and dent art with a roofing hammer, bogus nails and the woodwork.

I tried to be positive. I accepted our overzealous mini Michael Angelo bursted with creativity. But I didn't much appreciate his exhibits. Especially after viewing ketchup art with embellished thick red matte and frame. Crayola calisthenics apparently paled in comparison. Whatever the case, I relived a scene from a story my sister shared with me.

Her home-schooled girls enjoyed ketchup, mustard and bread art one afternoon in the kitchen. (Must be a familial thing.) Albeit disappointed at missing an invitation to the fest, she suggested they go light on the mustard, "since it might not taste so good". She thought they would end art class, having learned the project would also serve as lunch. But, the kiddies didn't act discouraged. They both informed mom they loved mustard and ketchup. They liked it so well they made double-decker lunches.

The test being in the taste, didn't gain high marks with the girls. They claimed to like their lunches but, the squinting eyes, shivers and scrunched faces painted a different picture. The girls abandoned the mustard ketchup art classes and their mother says she has a growing fondness for the "taste what you make" projects.

With that in mind, I decided my toddler deserved to taste the rewards of his effort also. Especially since time-outs apparently hadn't discouraged his over-creative, mischievous antics.

"OH, WOW" I said impressed, "I see you made a yummy sandwich."

I could tell by his raised eyebrows he had no clue he had made a yummy sandwich. Interesting, I looked at bread and ketchup and saw food. He looked at bread and ketchup and saw - fun? Art was weird sometimes.

"Eat it up," I said.

I expected him to high tail it out of the kitchen. But, he proved to be as brave as his cousins. By the third bite he insisted in his sour face that he liked it. That evening we told daddy all about the fun day. Our toddler reported the ketchup bread was ‘gisgusting'. Guess he had more fun making the "art" than he had eating it. Imagine that.

Frustrating and exhausting best described my feelings about discipline. - Oh and it made me want to yank on my hair from time to time. Sometimes it was easier to pretend I saw no evil. Yet, I knew that enforcing boundaries would eventually pay off.

Parent books, psychology books and advice columns didn't have all the answers. They made everything sound easy. I never read a chapter about the kid who liked doing art and destroyed the house while he created it. And time-outs never quite functioned as miracle holidays I swept my kid off to in the middle of a hurricane. Seems like we *redirected with the hurricanes a few too many times. From my perspective, the "D" word required a bit of creativity - which is precisely why I learned to be craftier.

My little guy replaced some of his art endeavors with more appealing masterwork. Hammers, screwdrivers and the likes stopped making lasting impressions. (Mostly because the art supplies went under lock and key.) The inspirational contents of the fridge stopped being mediums for a potential magnum opus. Meanwhile, as I await the next hurdle,  is it uncanny that neither of us has lost our fondness for ketchup?

Note: I wrote this article when David was pre K. He's 12 now. :)