Premeditated Offensive Attack

I gave very clear instructions before Noah's rest time today. "You are not to come out of your room before I come and tell you that rest time is over. Do you understand? You may not come down the stairs and ask if you can get up, do you understand? You will get a spanking if you do not obey what I'm telling you. Do you understand Noah?"  "Yes mom, I understand."  I walk out of his room feeling pretty good about setting up clear expectations.

An hour or so later, as I sit with my computer trying to catch up on emails, I see him crouching on the stairs. "Noah, what did I tell you would be the consequence if you didn't stay in your room?"  "But mom, I just had a question. I was wondering if rest time is over?"  "Noah, you need to go back to your room, and I will be up in a couple of minutes for your spanking." Major breakdown happens, and he goes back to his room. 

A couple of minutes later, I walk into his room, and the moment I open the door, he karate chops me in the stomach...surprise attack was clearly his first offensive move.  And then, he continues a full on performance attack on me, using all sorts of interesting moves that include sound effects. I say performance attack because nothing he was doing had much force behind it, and he was smiling the whole time. So, he's kung fu-ing me, tripping me and chopping up my legs, all while wearing a low riding cap and sunglasses. He was in character. And it took me a few seconds of this to figure out what was happening. He was on the offense. In the couple of minutes it took me to get up to him, he had premeditated this plan of attack so that he could save himself from getting a spanking. Obviously, he didn't think through the details.  Once I got him to stop, he reached onto the floor and picked up this plastic play campfire thingy he has, and told me his plan was to knock me down and catch me on fire so I couldn't spank him. Wow.

Then of course, the conversation started. We spoke of motives and attitudes and what it means to honor mom and when it's not OK to play fight or catch your mom of fire...etc. This episode definitely ended with a spanking and then lots of apologizing and forgiving. Is it weird that I love these moments? First of all, they are hilarious, and secondly, they are such perfect teaching opportunities.

Oh, this kid!