From the Mouths of Babes

This weekend was pretty rough. Friday was spent trying to calm down 2 toddlers who both have sharing issues. Saturday was spent trying to entertain a very grumpy SB, and Sunday was spent begging SB to stop whining and crying.

It's just a phase.

At least that's what TB and I keep telling ourselves.

I was on my own with SB on Saturday afternoon/evening because TB had some private gig in Baltimore. My intentions were to bring her to "Storyville," which is located in a nearby public library and, according to their website, provides a free indoor play area that promotes reading. Win-win! However, SB took a very late nap, and by the time she woke up and rid herself of her post-nap wenchitude, Storyville was closed for the day.

So I brought her to the Hunt Valley Town Center with the promise of a surprise from the "toy store" and an ice cream if she would behave at Dick's long enough for Mommy to buy some new workout gloves. She wasn't horrendous. The ride home wasn't the best ever, but I've witnessed worse. I spent about $80 at Greetings & Readings, and all I bought for myself was the new Augusten Burroughs (my newest obsession- check back later for more on that) book. Everything else was toys or presents for SB.

The little rascal thanked me for my graciousness later that evening. She requested no bath for the evening, and my goal for that night was no fights, so I agreed. We put her jammies on and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. My MO for flossing her teeth involves sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bathroom with her head in my lap, mouth open and chin up. It's the easiest way for me to get to the back teeth, and I'm amazingly gentle for fear of drawing blood, so she usually doesn't mind.

Except this time. For some reason she did NOT want her teeth flossed. She kept swatting my hands away and screaming, then shutting her mouth and clamping her hands over them. I wasn't about to give in to this 3-year old, so I gently put her head down on the ground and rearranged us so that her hands were down by her side, held there by my leg, which I draped over her body.

I know this sounds cruel, but I wasn't hurting her, and I really needed both hands so that I could hold her mouth open so I didn't hurt her. I'm really scared that if she closes her mouth, especially hard, and bites down on the little dental floss-on-a-stick thing I use, she will really hurt herself.

She did not like this one bit, although I can't really say that I blamed her. I tried to go as fast as I could, but she kept crying and closing her mouth, so I was not being productive.

So she threw up on me.

OK I'll admit, there might have been a better way to go about it. I probably should have used some kind of psychology on her where she would eventually agree to open her mouth on her own, rather than forcing it open myself. But she is so stubborn!

So I plopped her in the bathtub, cleaned her off and put her to bed. That whole situation exhausted me, and I felt a weird mixture of frustration at her for being so stubborn and sympathy and guilt for getting my own child so upset that she puked.

But despite my frustrations with her, I can honestly say I've never laid a hand on her. With the exception of squirting Windex into my eyes (which she said was a mistake- more of a reflex with no intention of hurting me, she just did it without thinking...and I believe her), my mother never hit me or my brother. We used to punish SB by giving her a "time out" in the Princess Chair, until I discovered that she actually liked being banished to that chair. So now she stands in the corner, at the end of the hallway. But neither TB nor I have ever, even in the heat of the moment, raised our hand to smack her.

So you can imagine my horror, when yesterday, as I was trying to coax her out of my office so we could put her shoes on to go over to my friend Bucky's place so TB could hang some stuff up on the walls in her room, SB looked me dead in the eye and calmly said "Mommy. Don't make me hit you."

Not that I'm scared of SB hitting me. Somehow, she has gotten into that habit, and gets sent to the corner at least once per day for hitting me. It's not like she hits hard, or anything. And after she tells me she's sorry, she seems to realize it's not something she's supposed to do.

What scares me is if she says something like that to her teachers at preschool. Because I can see them automatically thinking that she's repeating something TB or I tell her.