Is it Morally or Ethically Wrong to Cage a Two Year Old?

The little guy can be the sweetest person on the planet, and then, in the blink of an eye, he can become a holy terror. It is enough to drive a person mad! One minute he will be hugging you, kissing you, telling you he loves you and just generally being the best baby boy I have ever met (not biased at all…). The next minute he will have dropped something or broken something or made a mess of everything I had just managed to clean and then demand that I pick it up, fix it, or put it away for him.

For instance, he spilled his juice for the umpteenth time this morning (I lost count between 5 and 500 – and yes, I do use sippy cups) so I handed the rag to him. He looked at me as if I had two heads and a snake coming out of my mouth and said, “No. Mommy do it. Mommy clean up.” I argued back and forth with him for way too long for my own sanity before he ran off, screaming with laughter, continuing his rant about “Mommy do it! Mommy do it!” Well, I was beat by the logic of a two year old. I’m still scratching my head on that one. Short of grabbing his scrawny arm and wiping the mess up with it (which I’m sure in some circles would get the pitchforks gathered around my house for child abuse) I was left with nothing to do but wipe it up myself.

Then, at lunch time, he spilled some shredded cheese on his seat. Guess what happened? Oh yeah, the same dance from snack time with the same chant that is really starting to get on my nerves. After a morning of this I decided I had endured enough and did the next best thing to caging him and shipping him off to join the circus – I locked him in his room and forced him to take a nap. Bad Mommy? Maybe. I think it’s probably the best option out of all of the other things I was thinking of doing with him.

It is like living with Napoleon, or how I imagine living with Napoleon would be. He is tiny for his age but so certain of his role as ‘boss’ in the house that he will do anything in his power to get you to do something for him. If he doesn’t get his way he will shriek the most ear-splitting scream that I want to yell right back at this diminutive dictator. I want to cage him like I can the puppy when he gets out of line. I want to rip my hair out of my head and stick forks in my ears to stop the ringing.

Fortunately for me I haven’t done any of these things, because this, like all trials and tribulations of living with a two year old, will soon pass. Then I would be left with sparse hair and no hearing and that would be no fun when I try and intimidate his dates when he starts dating. Actually, maybe I should just get it over with now, because I’m sure there will be no rest for this wicked Mama for the rest of her life. Then, when that was done, I could come up with other delightful ways of inflicting pain on myself. I will get back at him one day, though. I just have to figure out the right mode for revenge…

Sometimes, though, I wonder at the legality of caging him. Do you think anyone would tell on me?

How could I lock up that face? I'm screwed.

Breathe and Count to Ten

I need to remember to breathe and count to ten before engaging in an argument with my six year old. I will not win and she will scream and the neighbors will think I am killing her. I keep waiting for the police to show up. Maybe they will give me the lobotomy today.

Today I told her, after we had played at the park for a good forty-five minutes after school (what a nice mommy I am!), that in order to have any friends over she would have to pick up her bedroom. Being the good mom that I am I allowed her some time to play in the backyard before the rain came today thinking that she should have plenty of time to pick up her room before bed-time, and tomorrow she could have friends over again. Next thing you know, I look out in the yard and she is gone. I have a moment of panic until I hear her next door and see little brother standing at the part of the fence she goes over to get next door. Yeah, I was a little mad. The rule in our house is that you don't go anywhere, not even over the fence to the next door neighbors, without telling me (or someone who is in charge). That got her sent to her room to clean up immediately. We aren't fooling around about safety in this house.

Well, that sweet child of mine was up in her room for about ten minutes before she came out screaming and crying that it was too much of a mess and she needed help picking it up. I was in the middle of steam cleaning the play room - which I can guarantee you contained none of my mess, yet I was picking up after her. When she told me she needed help I about lost it. Perhaps if some small girl would help clean up more regularly, so that I wasn't the only one doing it day in and day out, I would be more inclined to help her. The mess in her room isn't bad, mostly costumes, books and dolls. It would be a quick job - nothing compared the 'exploded' room (which looks pretty good right now, if I can pat myself on the shoulder). I know for a fact I didn't make THAT mess, either.

What followed was twenty minutes of her writhing in agony on the floor at the bottom of the stairs screaming at me that it would 'take for hours'. I agreed with her, and told her it might take days if she didn't get up and get on it, and until then no friends, or maybe another round of grounding. Nothing was working. Then she told me that my voice sounded angry, and here is where I should have held my breath and counted to ten before saying anything... I was in the middle of trying to make mac and cheese, because I knew part of the cause of the meltdown was hunger, and I told her, "I'm sure my voice sounds angry right now. I only asked you to clean up your room. I spent two days cleaning the play room, and I know I don't make a mess in there, so am I supposed to clean up after you, little brother, and daddy? And then my stuff on top of it all? Am I your maid?" She shook her head 'no' and slunk out of the room.

A little while later - "But your voice sounds mad at me and everyone hates me!" She wailed, starting all over again. I tried to discern if something was going on at school but all I got out of her was that my voice hated her. And I didn't like her. And it wasn't fair. All of which isn't true, but as I know from experience, there is no consoling her when she gets like that. I just have to ignore it and let her get it out of her system.

I was a little smarter this time and I simply told her my voice was going to take a time-out from talking right now since it wasn't saying the nice things she wanted to hear. A lot more crying from her, but I didn't waiver, and my voice took a long time-out.

Dinner was served and everyone is going to bed early tonight. Wicked early.

They aren't always such little monsters, and I can usually pinpoint what's causing the meltdown, and it's usually just a matter of fixing the problem and everyone will calm down. When food takes longer to prepare and it's a hunger-caused meltdown, watch out, but when it's exhaustion causing them to lose it, that's a bit harder to fix, especially when they haven't had dinner yet. You have to fix one and then the other, because as it was pointed out to me tonight, 'it's just not fair to send someone to bed without dinner. That's not nice.' And she's right, it's not nice, but I sure would like to be able to do just that sometimes.

To end on a nice note, we finally uncovered the play kitchen in the playroom yesterday and found all of the food and serving utensils. When little brother saw it he immediately went to the phone that hangs up at it and called his sister at school. He babbled for a minute and then told her 'bye bye' before hanging up the phone. It was super cute. Those are the moments that make all this other harder, almost impossible sometimes, stuff worth it!

P.S. As soon as I fed them the house calmed down. And wouldn't ya know it - my darling dearest is up there right now, cleaning her room and singing. Little brother is still in bed, though...

"Amusement" Park

I have learned a lesson: Never take 5 little kids to an amusement park if you want to come home with an intact brain.

I learned that lesson yesterday when some friends and I took the kids to the amusement/water park. We were doing great at first - we shelled out the extra cash for a personal cabana, and with all those kids it was a fabulous thing to have. We thought we were soooo smart! We had waited out most of the first 15 minute safety break when we thought it would be smart to take the restless kids over to the pirate ship area, which has slides and places to run in splashing water. My daughter, who's 6, immediately went into melt-down mode. She was screaming and stomping and causing a scene while she told us she refused to go to the pirate ship. Well, when you have four other kids who really want to go to the pirate ship area, the one who does not want to go has to follow along. She reluctantly came with us as I started to drag her along. I guess she didn't want to scrape her knees or something crazy like that.

We finally meandered over there and put our toes in the water. It was freezing cold. It was blasting out at our faces at about a million miles an hour, and it was, let me reiterate, COLD! The 'girl with the bad attitude' was sitting on a rock, pouting, as we chased the others around. I went with my little guy onto the pirate ship and rode down a water slide with him, immediately getting yelled at because there was a weight limit on the dang thing. Seriously? OK, whatever, lifeguard dude. We splashed around a bit more and then I heard yelling coming from the steps up to the pirate ship. Actually, it was more like shrieking, as in 'somebody getting knives stabbed into them' shrieking. I turn to look to see who's horribly undisciplined child was causing all the ruckus, and to my horror it was my daughter. Wow. I, being the responsible parent that I am..., made sure all the kids were being looked after and ran back to the ship. My daughter was standing on the steps telling me she hated this place, her face was red, and she was kicking the water all around. I grabbed her, took her to the 'shore' and plopped her down. She told me she was never coming back and she wanted to go home. When I reminded her how many chores she was going to have to do to pay me back she shut up and followed us back over to the wave pool. That was a little better for everyone, although once the waves started my little guy wanted nothing to do with it. I had to hold a screaming, not quite two year old, baby while holding onto my daughter's raft. Every time a wave came he would crawl up my body like a little monkey. It was a blast, let me tell you.

When the second safety stop came about we decided we should probably feed the whole rotten bunch of them before they became more rotten and we got ourselves kicked out. That is where adventure number two came about.

Everyone decided they wanted chicken nuggets and corn dogs. Fine. That shouldn't be too hard. It IS an amusement park, after all, and people like fried foods when they wear themselves out standing in ridiculously lines for the rides. We made our slow way over to the ONE stand that sold what we were looking for and got in line. Trying to keep everybody amused while we waited was neat. They basically took off and immediately started stomping on the flowers planted around a tree. One of us went over there, trying to stop the behavior, but it was like trying to herd cats. They would all stop for a minute, one would see our backs were turned and get back on the flowers, and they'd all be up there the next second. It happened so fast you would think it was magic. Black magic.

Trying to figure out why we'd been standing in line for ten minutes at this point and not moving, we noticed there was one guy working the most popular stand at the whole place. One. We contemplated going somewhere else but there was nowhere else everybody would be happy, so we chose to wait it out. Twenty minutes, and lots of yelling at kids and bad looks from just about everyone, we got to the front of the line. And guess what? They were out of corn dogs. Great. I run over to see if my daughter will eat anything else and she says no. I am about to scream in frustration when I decided to order her a hot dog and she could just deal with it. There was going to be no reasoning with her and I didn't want to fight it. She was trying to run the show and it wasn't going to work. I bribed everyone with Dippin' Dots if they ate all of their lunch. (Don't judge me) Lalalala - long story short, we finally made it back to the cabana a couple of hours later and we were pooped. We herded everyone back into the pool and attempted to have some fun again. We finally wised up and stayed there until they kicked us out. The margaritas certainly didn't hurt, either. (See, we were smart!) A few rides and games later and I'd had enough.

The fun continued when we left the park and I only had one bottle of water. Perfect. Two kids and one bottle of water. Well, Miss Anger Management Reject started kicking and screaming again about how it wasn't fair; I was a terrible mother; I should have two water bottles because I have two kids and I didn't think right; and so on and so on and so on. She also said she wasn't going to put on her seat belt if she didn't have water because she was too hot to move. I understand she was tired, yup, I get that, but it didn't make it any easier. With the threat of 'never ever going anywhere fun ever again and we were only playing in a kiddy pool in the backyard', she clipped it fast enough. Ten minutes into the drive home and they were both blissfully asleep and I could have a thought in my mind about something else that wasn't yelling, angry kids.

I'm never doing that again, I told myself. But, as it turns out, I'd bought season tickets. What was I thinking. I need a lobotomy. Please!! Oh, and the whole "I hate the pirate ship" thing?" Yeah. It all happened because my daughter thought there were real pirates there. Sheesh.