As a parent, I hand out ultimatums all the time: do this, or you’re not getting that; stop that, otherwise there’s no this. It never ends.
Even though I’ve had a lot of practice over the years with ultimatums, I still sometimes have a hard time knowing when to keep my mouth shut. I’ve learned the hard way that if I don’t follow through with them, they get ignored. And following through is sometimes difficult.
For example, when my behaviorally challenged (good behavior, that is–he’s excellent with bad behavior) son, Alex, gets in his head that he wants to go somewhere, about eight times out of ten he’ll wait until the last minute and then change his mind. The last major instance of this was right after Christmas, when he was excited about all of us going to the mall to shop at the Boxing Day sales. My autistic son, Chris, was all ready to go, waiting outside in the cold–if you’ve never met an autistic person, believe me, it’s not easy to change their mind about something they’ve been promised they’re going to do. We were all about to get our coats on, and Alex said he wanted to stay home alone. Although he’s physically seventeen years old, I’ve never left him alone at home. He’s Deaf, and with the mental age of a six- or seven-year-old, I don’t feel comfortable with it. However, usually when we say to him that we’re going with or without him, he’ll get his coat on and go. Not this time. He called my bluff.
With my ultimatum stuck in my throat, the rest of us piled in the car and left. I managed to get to the end of the block before I turned around and went back home. Sure enough, he’d had his fill of being alone and was getting his coat on when I came back in the door.
Since then, we’ve all gone out as a family once. I made sure to tell Chris that we were going to TRY to go out together, and I didn’t ask him to get ready until Alex was outside and in the car. I learned my lesson. Still have to wonder what my next ultimatum trial will be.
Welcome back to the regular daily prompts with your regular prompted word. I’ve got to say, I have been enjoying the wild diversity of all the SoCS posts this week. I may make something like yesterday’s prompt of random words you find yourself an occasional feature. In the meantime, here’s your Sunday prompt:
Your prompt for January 14th, 2018, brought to you by a new-to-me blogger, Itinerary Planner, is “Ultimatum.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Itinerary Planner at her blog, “Travel Itineraries: Travel the World for Less” (sounds good to me!) to read her post and say hi! Here’s her link: https://traveltinerary.com/
Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of theday. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
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