Parenting–the best job you’ll ever have(?)
Posted on December 3, 2007 - Filed Under Whine with my cheese, Adult swim, The Daily Doodle, Parenting
Well, I guess we have arrived. That’s right–we are now residents of ‘terrible twos’ land and boy, is the weather bad. Obviously, Maggie won’t actually be two years old for another few months but if there is any truth to the idea of the terrible twos, she sure is evidence of it.
Everything–and I mean EVERYTHING–is now “MINE!!!” and it is an at least once a day (Erin says it’s more like five) ritual now for her to scream, cry, and throw the proverbial temper tantrum. Most of the time, this appears to us a hopeless situation, though there’s always the idealist voice in the back of my head which says, ‘This is a golden opportunity to begin leading your daughter down the path of learning how to be an effective human being, one able to deal with disappointment and skilled in acquiring that which she desires.’
We were walking through the grocery store the other day. A family was shopping for bacon–mom, dad, a six year old girl, and a set of one year old twin boys. As one year olds are sometimes apt to do, they were just sort of sitting there in the cart, staring off into space. The girl, however, was in full blown meltdown, on the floor screaming and crying like someone hired to wail at a stranger’s funeral. Who knows why; the point is, she was putting on quite a show. The bottom line of my concerns about Maggie? I don’t want a child who acts like that.
Some would say the answer is simple discipline. However, as anyone observant of the human animal will readily tell you, nothing is ever simple when the subject is our behavior. I (I can’t speak for Erin) am very anxious about this whole thing because there is no recipe book or technical manual to assist relatively inexperienced parents with these quandaries. What are you supposed to do? Just throw the dice in the general direction and hope you come up something reasonably good? I think if we are really honest with ourselves, the answer is a reluctant, ‘Yes.’
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Ya, those terrible twos. “Mine” is not so bad..Jaiden’s favorite is “NO”. Every question is met with a firm “NO” if it in any way doesn’t please her. I am learning to avoid questions. As for the fits–I avoid taking her out whenever possible but have found those 6 foot long carts in the grocery store (with the racing cars or fire trucks attached)are a great distractions. Just be sure to carry sanitizing wipes and watch the corners. They can be tricky to drive…
Hope all is well and hope the birthday is fun!!