Oh. My. Gawd.
Someone please come get this child before one of us perishes in a blaze of flying limbs and curse words. I am in the middle of an episode of "Death Match: Toddler."
I think he might be trying to kill me. Seriously, I think that during nap time at preschool, they all have a little secret meeting about how to rid the world of adults. My son, I am sure, is the ring-leader. Can't you picture them now, their cherubic little faces twisted up in evil little grins as they plot Mommy's demise? Their own little Axis of Evil. Sippy cups filled with vodka (HEY - NOT A BAD IDEA!), biting the heads off their animal crackers, they hatch one plot after another to slowly chip away at Mommy's sanity.
OK, as my friend Jenny pointed out, perhaps I AM going slowly insane. But J is the one doing it to me.
We go from Happy Toddler to Possessed Demon Spawn about 12 minutes after getting up in the morning and it only goes downhill from there. He has been spanked more times than I can count in the past week. (His favorite trick that he KNOWS will elicit a spanking: Hitting the big screen TV as hard as he can, smack in the middle of the screen.) Last night's spanking left a red mark in the shape of my hand right across his little tuches (his pants had been removed). The hand-shaped welt glared at me all the way up the stairs screaming in bright red finger marks: BAD MOMMY! I swear to you though, a spanking is the only thing that gets through to this child sometimes. If I try to Maintain Low Tones, or distract him or any of the other 32 things you are supposed to do instead of hitting your child, he just laughs and goes right back to the offending behavior. I love him more than anything else in the universe, but he can be a real prick sometimes.
I know some of you have toddlers and preschoolers of your own. Any advice? I need something good and I need it quickly, before Children's Services shows up to investigate the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from the bowels of our home.
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4 comments:
Duuuuuddde! Always works for me: lock him in his room and ignore him. It prevents you from going insane and prevents him from further button-pushing behavior. I tried ignoring the bad behavior before, but that didn't work for Elliott (also a recipient of the Spank-a-thon). Now all I can do is smack their hands mightily as soon as the offending behavior occurs, with the most passive, neutral face and tone I can muster, and then lock 'em in their room. I'll join you out on the porch for a sippy-tini in a minute, man.
Power to the mommy!
How old is Jack? Three? Abrupt and severe always worked (and still works) best for us. I don't spank, because I found that I get too angry, and there's no way I could do it in a controlled way. We're talking a you-hung-your-clothes-on-wire-hangers kind of spanking it would be. In fact, I gave spanking a few tries back when Elizabeth was about that age, and all it did was make me feel guilty and sick. When she begins to act naughty, she gets plucked right away from wherever she is and whatever she was doing and gets plopped into her room with the door shut, where she can go all into a rage if she wants. I don't have to look at it, and she's not permitted to return to the land of the living until she stops going apeshit. Which always takes much less time than I expect. Oh, and I always just name the behavior as I'm whisking her away. I'll say, "That's back talk [hitting, defiance, etc.]. You go to your room." As my good friend and neighbor says, just because your kid's miserable, that doesn't mean you have to be miserable, too. Maybe think of each acting-up episode as an opportunity for him to learn which behaviors you won't tolerate, and an opportunity for you to get some unexpected alone time with your feet up on the sofa in the living room. I'll send you some swizzle sticks for the occasions. :)
Oh Boy, maybe you should of stuck with cats......
So it looks like i have 2 options here.
1. Stick him in his room with his door shut or
2. Trade him in for a cat.
Since we already have a dog and I'm not much of a feline lover anyway, I think I'll take the advice of the Mommies of Toddlers Support Group and try the imprisonmant method. I should get a workout, what with all the time I'll be lugging a 40 punder up the stairs each day.
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