For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 26, 2023

Honestly, it’s time to discipline that girl the old-fashioned way

I wonder if they ever tried what my parents did when I was April’s age and refused to go to bed. Mom told me that if I wasn’t going to use my bed, they’d give it away to another little girl. It worked, or so I’ve been told.

I would lie down next to my son and red him a story. Sometimes several stories. We’d say our prayers. Then I’d shut the light off and lie there until he fell asleep. Did that every night until he was 14, when he decided he was too old for that.

I used to read to my daughter until she fell asleep. Worked every time.

Supernanny technique: Just keep putting her back in the bed until she gives up. Might take some effort but eventually it works.

Reading Aypo could be considered birth control. Need more comics of her upside, not misused scissors, swallowed buttons and dog related booboos.

Two jokes about April saying “No” in a row. I wonder if this is going to be the theme for the week.

Monday – April says “No” both going in and exiting a bath.

Tuesday – April says, “No” going to bed.

Wednesday – April says, “No” to getting a bedtime story.

Thusday – April says, “No” to going to sleep.

Friday – April says, “No” to getting wakened up.

Saturday – Farley says, “Enough of this! I’m taking over.” and April immediately obeys.

Aypo waited until she was three before pulling the terrible two’s.

It’s characters like that which makes me glad I never had kids!!

Cute.

Well, Elly, you’re the one who wanted another kid!

Funny punchline. Has she got the will to go to sleep – or won’t she.

Adults know the difference between being obstinate and being determined. Being determined is about actually accomplishing something, while being obstinate is foolish insistence on getting one’s own way.

Here lies the body of Mary Meek. Her will was strong; but her won’t was weak.

Tired of this character

You know, now that I think about it, I don’t remember ever not wanting to go to bed as a kid. I was happy to say my prayers and really “..lay me down to sleep.” Maybe I was weird that way, but I’m okay with “weird that way.”

When my kids would pull that stunt, I would leave them in their room, shut the door and tell them to be quiet and then I would get them up at 0500 the next morning – it only took a couple of times for them to realize that going to bed and sleeping was a good idea…

It’s always a sad day when the kids decide they’re too old to take naps anymore. That downtime was great.

Better not let her win

April is being a pill……..

Not abnormal at all, as a child, to assert one’s idea of control of themselves. Gotta start somewhere :D

Well said, Elly. Well said!

So how’s Michael’s blossoming friendship with Weed going? It’s got to be more interesting than this.

This cartoon reminded me of a kid’s story by Richard Scarry about Pig Will and Pig Wont.

We did that also with 5 boys!

Connie is impressed with Elly’s Peter Lorre impersonation in the last panel.

Goofus and Gallant. The TV will lull her to sleep

That kid needs a whuppin’.

She’s watched you deny Mike and Liz every reasonable request they’ve ever made her whole life, Cru-Elly. REAP WHAT YOU SOW!

Alternate ending?

“On the contrary, she’s very contrary.”

Now we’re back to “Aypo”, yet just a couple weeks ago she was speaking in complete sentences and referring to herself as “I.”

Good memories.

I could never tolerate this from a child

We did not have a lot of trouble getting our 5-year-old grandson to settle down in bed. I or my wife would start to read him a book. After about two or three chapters, he would be out like a light. Unfortunately, he was also a very active sleeper, so we had to put extra pillows around him to keep him in the bed.

Or, lie there until you went to sleep.

Aaaannd, now she suddenly doesn’t know how to talk again!! After a few weeks of forming complete, coherent sentences!