(this photo was probably taken right before they polished off MY burrito!)
it’s a wonder that i am not perpetually passed out on the floor dehydrated and starving because my children are always eating my snacks and drinking my water. whatever i may have, they consider theirs. to be fair, when they were little i frequently poured my water into their glasses because i didn’t feel like getting up once i finally got to the table. likewise my spaghetti or chicken nuggets. but they are bigger now and both of them can reach the glasses and the sink and they are perfectly capable of serving themselves. alas, these poor habits are deeply ingrained, despite my recent campaign to change them.
the other evening my son flashed me a twinkly, devilish wink, picked up my newly refilled glass of water and drank a third of it before i could grab it out of his selfish hands. i was flooded with fury and tossed the remains right in his face. (i was already SUPER annoyed with him about a discrepancy in the amount of effort we each thought he should put toward a school project.) he was pretty shocked and AMUSED and immediately cleaned up the mess. he also headed directly upstairs to work further on his project, but i didn’t feel like he was especially remorseful.
when he returned later that evening from a trumpet lesson with his father, we reviewed the day’s events. per usual, he used humor to diffuse my anger… i am a sucker for a dry remark. i asked him if he’d told his dad about the water incident.
“yes… dad said - that’s mama… she’s all cool and then BAM. she’s unpredictable.”
i like to think of myself as breezy and calm, someone not easily flapped and certainly not volatile so this description gave me pause.
“did you ever throw water at dad when you were married?”
“no… but i DID throw tacos at him once.” (of course at the time we were living in a very dumpy rental while our house was being remodeled… i would NEVER have flung salsa in my new, white house no matter how angry i was. plus he was HOURS late with the dinner - so late i’d already scrounged up something else to eat and put the kids to bed so it was completely understandable… i am realizing i REALLY don’t like to wait too long for my food or have it snatched away from me.)
i HAVE tried other methods of discipline… i take away devices regularly and hide them. the problem with this tactic is that i frequently can’t find them again. we lost our iPad for a year and a half. of course when i finally bought a new one, i found the old one in the dark reaches of my closet. unfortunately, it was another few months before i found the charger. (it’s a conundrum, because if i put it in the same place, they know where to to find it and if i put it in a new place, i don’t. sort of like passwords - i hate when a site makes you change it because it pretty much means i will never get in again.) a few weeks ago, i told my daughter that she’d lost iPad privileges and she retorted, “that doesn’t even matter mama because we don’t know where it is.” “that’s true,” i said, “but when we find it, you can’t have it.” we STILL have not come across it, which is a bit of a problem because she’s supposed to be practicing math facts on a program her teacher recommended.
i have a southern friend who assigns her children “lines” when they are naughty. i thought i would give this a go after lucy was particularly sassy one afternoon. i told her she needed to write two full pages. i should have given her lined paper, but i did not anticipate that she would employ giant lettering. i’m not sure what her take away was from this exercise because i found it so funny i didn’t make her redo them. which is the other problem… i forgive my children for almost anything if they make me laugh.
(lucy’s two pages of lines…)
generally, i am an inappropriate laugher. i giggle when i see other people’s kids getting scolded in the check out line or on the playground. i chuckle when my own children bonk their heads or stub their toes or wipe out while running in their socks, sometimes even when they are crying (this does’t usually go over very well.) but i especially laugh at potty related incidents, like the times they have picked up hank (who is not the best wiper) shortly after he’s done his business and ended up with dog poop smeared on their arms… this INFURIATES them, which makes me laugh more, sometimes to the point where i have tears running down my cheeks and my whole body is shaking. i am not sure why i have this glitch, but one of the casualties is my children have learned to cock an eyebrow and say something witty and thereby avoid serious consequences for whatever dastardly thing they have done… unless they’ve drunk my water, in which case they may end up doused. BAM.
to read more about my parenting exploits click here or here or here