My nephew Isaac was eating lunch when there was a little disturbance at his end of the table. Focused as I was on my own kids, I didn’t really notice until his mother Michelle darted into the kitchen and came back with a paper towel. “Wipe it up, honey,” she said, and Isaac, who is not yet two years old, did so. No fuss, no upset.
I was impressed by how coolly she took it, and I said so. Christian made a face at me across the table and nodded. “You’d be yelling at Alex,” he said. And suddenly I felt ashamed of how easily I get upset. It seems like I’m always fighting with him, trying to get him to do what I say, when I say it. This is not how I meant to be as a parent.
Probably all three-year-olds are like Alex. They’re sweet, they’re lovable, they’re so much fun you just want to eat them up. “Mommy!” he says, “I have a good idea! Let’s go to the pool!”
“Great!” I say. “Go get your swim trunks.” He shrieks with glee, but rather than go do it, he runs away. When I call him back, he ignores me. When I yell, he comes back to play with Julianna, looks at a Lego instruction booklet, and decides he has to go to the bathroom. “Okay, go to the bathroom,” I say. He goes into the bathroom, but then he stops to explore the box of oral motor toys on the floor by the sink, moves the stool around, flips the light switches a few dozen times, and then informs me he doesn’t have to go after all.
It seems like perfectly justifiable parental frustration to me, don’t you agree?
But the problem is, this happens every time we do something. So lately there’s been a lot of shouting in my house, a lot of threatening (Fine, we just won’t go to the library today, then!). Watching Michelle handle a mess without breaking a sweat made me realize how far I have wandered from my intent as a parent.
The scene stayed with me all afternoon, as we explored the Magic House and ate dinner at Culpeppers with six of the nine Basi cousins in attendance. Sometime during that afternoon, I resolved to do better. I will keep my cool.
My resolution fielded its first challenge when it was time to leave Mark and Michelle’s house. Alex wanted to keep playing with his cousins. He plopped down on the floor; he absolutely was NOT going to sit on the toilet. Well, we absolutely were NOT driving two hours back to Columbia at bedtime without putting him on the toilet. So I made a big joke of it, grabbed him by the wrists, and pulled him across the floor. He was giggling hysterically. (He loves to be tossed around; he’s just too big these days.) When we reached the bathroom, he leaped up and ran behind the toilet. I ran through my options. He’d already had his ice cream; we were already leaving; it was already too late to read books before bedtime. What could I threaten to take away? Nothing. So I put on my “I’m gonna eat you up” look and said, “You’d better get over here, or I’m gonna get you!”
He giggled harder but made no move to comply. And I realized that he wanted me to get him. So I did, and then I put him on the toilet. Mission accomplished, no shouting.
Keeping my cool when we got home 2 ½ hours later was quite a bit harder. All the way back to Columbia we heard how tired he was and how much his bottom hurt. But he kept singing songs to keep himself awake. He finally fell asleep at exit 137—our exit is 127—so you can imagine what it was like trying to get him out of the van, let alone up to his bedroom, teeth brushed, toileted, hands washed, in pajamas. He cried the whole time, yet every time I tried to do something for him he’d cry harder and insist he had to do it himself. I had to keep reminding myself, Cool! Keep your cool! But in the end I managed it.
We’ll see how the resolution holds up the day after, when Mommy’s only had 6 hours of sleep.
Kathleen M. Basi 