First Spanking

We had a great weekend. We went to Wildseed Farms in the spitting/rain on Saturday morning and had fun just going on a little outting and getting a couple pictures. Then we hung out and played the rest of Saturday and Sunday after church and HEB. All in all, a great weekend.
The one hard part, for mommy, was that Lincoln is learning to test the limits. He's learning so much and he seems so smart that we try to encourage all kinds of good behavior. But, along with it comes the defiance and scary exploration.
He pushed the kitchen chair just far enough that I couldn't easily see him from where I was. (I think that was a coincidence because he hasn't seemed to get the pushing things to play with them elsewhere concept, yet, but that could be changing.) Then, he climbed on the chair, standing up on top (a big no-no) and peered around the corner/wall at me and Doug. So, he got reprimanded for standing on the chair and we told him to sit down, to which he laughed. Straight to time out (standing with his arms and head held pretty still facing a nondescript portion of wall to the count of 10 or 15). Repeat. Again. The third time, since this was obviously a game, came with a swift swat to his diaper before beginning the time out. Made him cry and mommy nearly so. I don't like the idea of it, but it did show him that it was serious. He kept crying and crying - completely injured (his pride, at least). Enough so that I checked to see if he was red. I swear he was and felt awful. But then, when I actually checked without just peeking under his diaper as he moved, there was no indication that he had ever been pink. So, I think it was me just feeling awful. I hope that was enough to show him that mommy is serious about discipline and time outs and that I'll never feel like he needs more than the time out to learn. (I know that's not realistic, but I can hope. Maybe it's time to do time outs for real, where he has to sit by himself for longer than 10 seconds. Maybe it's time to start counting plus time outs...)