I've been posting a lot on my kids and my interactions with them, I guess it's my release, but I don't know. I don't want to sound like an idiot mouth breather who is so proud of his kids that he just has to talk about them. Really it's just they are the only ones who can stand me, and they're forced to at that, so there you go. Besides I'm not talking about how great they are really, just life with kids in general.
My youngest has this habit, it's cropped up in the last month or so. Basically she says "my mommy" to just about anything and everything that has to do with me and anything that can be perceived as negative. I.E. if I say "let's go to bed" she responds "my mommy". With anything...that's negative. If I were to say, "let's go to the park" or "want to feed the fish?" then a normal response can be expected.
She does it to my wife too, so I don't feel alone, but I can't understand it. My older daughter didn't do it, my younger siblings didn't do it, even my older siblings' kids didn't do it. So I really don't know.
So my daughter has been in a rut lately, and to her credit she is still fighting off the virus. But my wife spends anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour getting her ready for bed. And these days within minutes of my wife putting her down, she's back up, crying and saying over and over again, "my mommy".
That's my cue, to drop whatever and go upstairs and put her back in bed. If my wife does it, she just gets up again. So I must take a screaming, even more so when she realizes the person coming up the stairs is not "my mommy", and put her back in bed. She tries to not let me take her back into her room. But unfortunately I'm a lot bigger than her. So she kicks, and screams, and throws around the "my mommy" until everyone feels sufficiently guilty. And I get her back in her room.
Then when she has worn herself out, I can talk to her. I tell her how if she goes to sleep now she can wake up and have a great day tomorrow. She'll see the dogs ant cat and maybe even feed the fish. I hug her tight and tell her goodnight, and she does the same. All is good with the world once again.
Why do we have to go through this every night? I guess I'll never know.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
My Mommy
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2 comments:
Little kids are highly manipulative. To get what they want they push the button that works repetitively for them. Ever seen a small child scream and cry and throw a tantrum when sent to their room - and then stop and listen to see if anyone's coming to pay attention to them? Funny as hell!
Two schools of thought on that. You can refuse to be emotionally manipulated and deal with their outbursts in a calm, cool, rational manner; or you can give in to their manipulation because you love them and you want them to love you and you think they are soo wonderful/cute/pathetic that they just HAVE to be cuddled out of it.
I of course (as the Bitch Mother From Hell) always opted for the former. Which made all of my children become rational thinkers instead of dependent emotional manipulators of others, as well as to grow to refuse to be emotionally manipulated by others in their adult life. Grin. I'm one of those folk who believe that everything (no matter how vaguely irritating or seemingly unimportant)'counts' in the development of their personalities. As long as they were rational and reasonable, they got what they wanted. When they tried to manipulate, they were cut off emotionally. It hurts a lot sometimes to do it... cause DAMN they can be so cute...
I think it's the having to listen to them, once you make the call to cut them off that's the worst.
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