So I've learned the word for now. Tagad really means, 'right now.' Eyes went wide when I used that two days ago. My tone made it clear, it wasn't a question and I knew exactly what I had said.
Aleks sometimes doesn't respond to it. Correction, sometimes he's just defiant. The solution to that is 'OK' and to come towards him and make it clear it's going to be a time out. (bed or chair)
Just had to do that to get him to be quiet in his bed. Wendy had made him sit in our room for a bit the other night when he wouldn't settle down. I did that tonight. I closed the door and I heard a screech and shouting and laughing. (all from him, his brother's I could hear were annoyed) I came in and commanded 'nakt' (come) and pointed into our room. He refused. Tagad. (in an even more commanding voice, thanks Dad) Again refused. "Ok" and I didn't take two steps and he was up and out of bed trotting into our room. Sat him down, told him I loved him but he had to go to bed, no more talking. (in my best broken Latvian) He was sullen but smiled when I told him I loved him. He trotted back to bed happily in a minute or two. Who says I can't learn a new thing or two about how to handle kids.
Reinforces my long held belief (thanks Mom and Dad) that discipline is a form of love and kids need love in all it's forms. Kids that run wild really are miserable and while Aleks may be a handful sometimes right now (he's sweet and nice plenty of the time, he can just switch to wildman in an instant) but he will be a great kid and a fine young man. He's a free spirit. I don't want to smoosh that out of him. We just need it to be a bit more focused. :-)
It was really cold today and rained then turned to snow. We haven't seen the sun
since the day we got here. Should have brought a heavy
Wendy's run out for milk, and hopefully a beer. We could use one, or 10. Signing off from Latvia.
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