discipline with a (tiring weak little) "d"

I don't really want to post this, but I need help, so I might as well be honest. (And bear with me . . . I'm adding this in later after I see how long this ends up being. Obviously this means I needed to "talk"!)

Ever since Neil got home from being gone, Noah has been acting out big time. I'm not sure what it is, but it's seriously bringing me over the edge. He was so so so good for me the past two weeks. Now I am wondering what happened.

Perfect scenario:

This morning I was sitting at my computer, the kids were being quite good playing together. I say to Noah, "hey, let's go to the mall and buy you some new clothes for school!". He says "Ok-aaaay!!!", really excitedly. I said, "You must be good for mommy. Maia needs to hold your hand. Make sure she stays close. If you guys are good, we'll get some art supplies for home and maybe we'll stop by the cookie store". He says to me, "Okay, mom!" (He's suddenly only calling me mom. Not mommy, but mom. I hate it. I'm not ready for that yet!)

So he's sooooo good on the way to town. We hold hands going into the mall. We get to the store and he starts running around. Of course Maia follows every single thing Noah does, so then I have two on the loose in a big store. We just leave. He gives me no choice.

I'm not making our 20-minute drive to town a total waste. So we try again! This time we head to Baby Gap to check their sales.

It's not a large store, but still, he goes straight for the clothes racks and run through them, stands on things he's not suppose to, etc., etc. (Okay, seriously, he is not acting like a maniac child or anything but he does not listen to my rules, and at the age of almost 4, where he's starting pre-school, he needs to follow the rules, don't you think?) Little Miss Copycat does the same thing. She will NOT behave well if he doesn't. I stress over and over how he needs to set a good example for her. How she needs him to teach her how to be a good boy. (Sometimes he's for that, sometimes not.)

Am I doing/saying something wrong because THIS TACTIC IS NOT WORKING!?

While in Baby Gap, I don't ignore him, even though I'd like to pretend like he and Maia are not my children, but I grab him, tell him he gets one more chance and if he continues acting like that, we're leaving. "You get nothing for behaving like this", I said. He said "okay". (It must be too much to ask for your almost 4-year old to stand by you! Or is it? I don't know. Someone tell me!) But then 10 seconds later, he's off again and then so is Maia. So we leave.

I grab Maia, we walk out. Noah follows way behind. I am so angry I just want to cry. At this point he is crying. People are staring at him and at me like I'm the worst parent on the face of this Earth because I am letting my kid walk 5 yards behind me sobbing. Well, what am I suppose to do?!?!

We had a similar experience twice this past weekend. Noah finally met the neighbor boys. There are 3 of them, ages 22 months, 4 and 5. He was playing with them for probably 2 hours. It was time to come home. He didn't want to. Neil asked him to nicely, and he refused. So Neil picked him up and brought him home literally kicking and screaming. He kept trying to get out of the house for about 5 minutes until he was too worn out to try anymore. He finally calmed down and we explained to him that when we ask him to come home, it's time to come home. That the neighbor boys need to eat dinner and so do we. The only thing Noah could think about the rest of the night were his new "friends". I know he probably was just really excited, and I understand that. But he can be excited and happy yet still follow mommy and daddy's requests and rules, right? Disappointingly, the same thing happened the next day also.

This time Neil said he had 5 more minutes to play, then he had to come home for dinner. He didn't say anything but we knew he heard us. 5 minutes, actually 10 minutes later, we told him he had to come home, and again, he refused. After about 30 minutes of crying and pouting and saying we were "mean", we told him he could not see his friends then on Sunday. We took his two favorite things away the rest of the night. Obviously these ways were/are not working! Or are they? I don't feel that they are.

So today, I get home and pull out the Dr. Sears Discipline Book. I'm so so so afraid I'm doing something wrong as a mommy. My biggest fear is that whatever I'm doing is going to hurt him in some way or affect him for the rest of his life. Part of me feels I'm doing right, and the other feels like I'm all lost and turned around. What do you do?

I need help. And I'm not embarrassed to say I need help. I'd rather admit I need it and nip this in the bud now rather than later or never at all. And maybe it's not a problem. Maybe this is normal. Maybe it's not. Heck, what is normal??? Is there a normal?

He starts school Friday. I don't want to be one of those parents who gets a call from the teacher. And, the teeny tiny feeling of positive-thinking I have inside me says that maybe he'll be fine. He's normally very very good. But, on the other hand, I guess this is just all part of being a parent and learning more about ourselves, our children and about life. But it sucks. I need some advice from my well-traveled wise mothering friends and followers. Please?