For Better or Worse

new paddle
This is my new bubinga paddle. It’s 1/2″ thick and about 20″ long. It should leave nice, round, red, marks on Lion’s bottom.

I need a dunce cap. For myself. Lion reminded me about maintenance spanking night early in the day. All I had to do was remember it. And actually, now that I think about it, I did remember after dinner. Then I forgot again. We even have a new paddle that I could have tried out. It’s made out of bubinga wood. It’s really a work of art. Nice grain. Beautiful. And I forgot all about it last night.

Lion and I are both really off our games lately. Too much worry. Too little sleep. I feel like Sisyphus. I roll the boulder up the hill and watch it roll back down again. I work toward payday and watch it go right back out again. The least my money could do is wave to me as it rushes past. Nope. Just keep working toward that next payday that will go right back out the door. It’s very stressful.

On a positive note, Lion and I are together. I think part of it is because we don’t blame each other when bad things happen. It’s not like Lion punched his boss in the face and got fired. (And even if he did, for Lion to have reached a point that he would punch someone, you can bet that person deserved it.) Shit happens. Now you can bet my ex and I would have been at each other’s throats by now. Somehow it would have been my fault he lost his job. Not Lion. We’ll get through it. Somehow. Together.

I do need to get back in the swing of things. I finally issued Lion his Good Lion coupons, and I’m glad he likes them. I know there are some he is unwilling to use. I’m happy he will use the new ones. For whatever reason it’s difficult for me to think of both rewards and punishments. I mean the specifics of it. Why should I punish him? Why should I reward him? Punishment is easy. He gets swats when he does things wrong. But what things does he do wrong? I’m still shaky on that. And I know he does a lot of good things, but what reward should he get? And for how many good things? I don’t want to start counting how many times he makes dinner. Then we’d be playing the game we tried to make up. I think it’s better just to give him a reward every so often for making dinner. I think it’s more important to show him I’m paying attention than to actually quantify tasks. And I can always give him a reward just because. Of course, I could technically give him a punishment just because.

I wish I could say we’ll play tonight. It all depends on Lion. I can offer. Whether or not he wants to play is up to him. No matter what, I’m here for him. For better or worse.

1 Comment

  1. Author

    Rather than thinking of them as rewards for doing certain things, try thinking of them as gifts. You don’t need a reason to give a gift, and you don’t expect one just because you do something. Removes some of the behaviours that can develop around expectations and playing up. Ms Rika (http://msrika.net) explains it better.

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