Testing...Testing... 1, 2, 3 year old.
Parts of having a three year old I remember. Other parts I have forgotten or locked away in the depths of my mind for protection from the horror of it. It is starting to come back to me, that realization that daycare sounds like a nice break, a fabulous concept, a mental health necessity....just a BRILLIANT idea!!
My darling, princess is driving me NUTS!! She follows me everywhere, wants to do everything I am doing, has fits when she can't, has fits for no reason, cries about anything just slightly off what she had in mind and is starting that "testing" phase BIG TIME.
"Brooke, put the knife down.".
"NOOOOOO!".
Hmmmmmm.
Then follows the battle of wits between a grown woman and a 3 year old. You can almost hear the western music and see the wind blowing the dry dust around us as we are staring at one another, guns drawn in a face off of who is going to outlast the other. Will Brooke finally obey before mom runs out of the energy it takes to be consistant and mean what she says.
She begins by raising the volume, I respond by being more assertive with my "put it down". Then she pulls the emotional blackmail. "Don't be mean at me!". But it doesn't stop there. Even at three they learn to pull the "You don't love me anymore". Mom is starting to feel her heart well up with "Yes, I do, sweetie, here take the knife and look, there is a drawer full of more knives! I do love you. Have them all if it the only way I can not scar you from believing I do not love you, my precious baby!!"!!". But no!! Shake it off, you can stand strong here. And so the battle takes awhile and most of your much needed enregy and you prevail in the end.
Then, when things calm down, you hold them close, stroke their hair, tell them wonderful things about how great they are and how much you love them, buy them a sucker, read a book, play a game, anything, because even though you got that knife out of her hands.... you're still trying to pull the knife out of your own heart. The one that said, "You don't love me anymore".
My darling, princess is driving me NUTS!! She follows me everywhere, wants to do everything I am doing, has fits when she can't, has fits for no reason, cries about anything just slightly off what she had in mind and is starting that "testing" phase BIG TIME.
"Brooke, put the knife down.".
"NOOOOOO!".
Hmmmmmm.
Then follows the battle of wits between a grown woman and a 3 year old. You can almost hear the western music and see the wind blowing the dry dust around us as we are staring at one another, guns drawn in a face off of who is going to outlast the other. Will Brooke finally obey before mom runs out of the energy it takes to be consistant and mean what she says.
She begins by raising the volume, I respond by being more assertive with my "put it down". Then she pulls the emotional blackmail. "Don't be mean at me!". But it doesn't stop there. Even at three they learn to pull the "You don't love me anymore". Mom is starting to feel her heart well up with "Yes, I do, sweetie, here take the knife and look, there is a drawer full of more knives! I do love you. Have them all if it the only way I can not scar you from believing I do not love you, my precious baby!!"!!". But no!! Shake it off, you can stand strong here. And so the battle takes awhile and most of your much needed enregy and you prevail in the end.
Then, when things calm down, you hold them close, stroke their hair, tell them wonderful things about how great they are and how much you love them, buy them a sucker, read a book, play a game, anything, because even though you got that knife out of her hands.... you're still trying to pull the knife out of your own heart. The one that said, "You don't love me anymore".
posted by Sunny at Saturday, October 14, 2006
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home