{"id":9057,"date":"2012-01-27T11:14:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T17:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=9057"},"modified":"2012-01-27T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T17:14:33","slug":"tender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/tender\/","title":{"rendered":"Tender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today is Five-Minute Friday, in which The Gypsy Mama<\/a> gives a writing prompt and bloggers write for the love of writing for five minutes. Then hit publish. Just write. Today’s prompt is “tender.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

“STOP!” I yelled across the room.<\/p>\n

IDiddy just looked at me and smiled. <\/p>\n

He knew exactly what he was doing.
\n
\nHis brother looked at me as well. Not only did I get IDiddy’s attention but now HDiddy was interested in playing along as well.<\/p>\n

IDiddy went right back to trying to squeeze behind the TV stand.<\/p>\n

There’s just something about small places that attract little boys. There’s always something interesting or exciting about them. <\/p>\n

I started my three count.<\/p>\n

“IDiddy. One!”<\/p>\n

He looked at me and started to back away.<\/p>\n

Now his brother had made his way to the other side of the TV stand and was trying to squeeze himself behind the stand.<\/p>\n

“IDiddy…. TWO!”<\/p>\n

He smiled. Wondering whether or not to test my patience again.<\/p>\n

I glanced over at HDiddy and saw he was reaching for the long TV cables now.<\/p>\n

“HDiddy! ONE!”<\/p>\n

HDiddy is a little more responsive to “the count” and backed out from the tight spot.<\/p>\n

IDiddy… not so much.<\/p>\n

“IDiddy! Last chance.”<\/p>\n

He smiled.<\/p>\n

“IDiddy. Three!”<\/p>\n

I walked over and picked him up.<\/p>\n

“Time out for one minute,” I said forcefully as I sat him down in my lap.<\/p>\n

I began to count down one minute of time as IDiddy watched his brother starting back behind the TV.<\/p>\n

Before long, HDiddy joined me in my lap as well.<\/p>\n

This continues several times over the next 15 minutes or so.<\/p>\n

The boys squeeze behind the stand. I begin the count. We all sit in timeout together.<\/p>\n

After the third or fourth time I let them out of my lap and lead them outside where we run and toss a ball together.<\/p>\n

Soon their mind is all wrapped up in the excitement of playing outdoors with their dad and the TV stand is forgotten about until another time and place.<\/p>\n

Forcing my boys to stop their activity doesn’t play out so well, but lovingly guiding them in another direction does so much more.<\/p>\n

If only I remembered this trick in the beginning. <\/p>\n

“…God’s (tender) kindness is meant to lead you to repentance…”<\/em> Romans 2:4<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Five-Minute Friday, in which The Gypsy Mama gives a writing prompt and bloggers write for the love of writing for five minutes. Then hit publish. Just write. Today’s prompt is “tender.” “STOP!” I yelled across the room. IDiddy just looked at me and smiled. He knew exactly what he was doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":9059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3893],"tags":[4314,3068,4316,4315,3469],"class_list":["post-9057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures-in-fatherhood","tag-5-minute-friday","tag-boys","tag-kindness","tag-tender","tag-twins"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-content\/uploads\/ididdy-blundell.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sEnSo-tender","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}