Sunday, August 15, 2010

Pride and applejuice

Kids are curious and funny , little creatures. Well, very little ones… ones that can’t really verbalize what they want and so when they are upset all you get is a whine, cry or all out temper tantrum. In our case we have two children that do this, but they just do it on different levels.

Our daughter is a little easier to read. Up until three or four months old babies usually need either of a handful of things… either it is their diaper needs to be changed, they are hungry, sleepy or perhaps they have a tint of gas or the hiccups. These are baby basics and easily subdued.

You would think it would be the other way around, but as they get older they have more issues! Maybe it is because I offer him juice and because I didn't magically have the juice ready, at the time I asked him if he wanted it... he FREAKS out! I'm working on my choice of words now... Also, we may have the wrong TV show or movie and he wants to watch Super Why rather than Mickey Mouse Club House? It is amazing, he will pick the same movie to watch - everytime if we give him a choice... 9 times out of 10 it will be the Incredibles! Although, there are times he picks up Avatar or X-men: United, but when we take it away.

"No Mauldin," we say... "this is not a Mauldin or Elle movie, this is a movie just for mommy and daddy." He doesn't like that answer and will begin to throw all the movies from the cabinet on the floor as his revenge for not getting to view the film of his choice.

Mauldin's temper is the same everytime... it usually begins with a short whine or whimper and is followed with throwing his juice cup or toy (in this case movie) on the floor.

“Mauldin,” I look at him, “that wasn’t nice, now was it?” He looks at me with his big, 16-month, blue eyes, sometimes with tears running down his face, and just lets out a large exhale. This symbolizes a non-verbal “done.” Like, I’m done with this conversation. Now, granted 90% of the time our little man is a perfect gentleman. He follows the rules we set for him… he puts away his toys and relatively never gets into “trouble.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, not expecting an answer because his total vocabulary consists of probably six words: juice, up, down, zap, daddy and done.

“Da!” he says with much zeal, as if he had forgotten he was crying! He then puts two fingers to his mouth and begins flipping them on his lips which give me the clue that he now has something else on his mind and is ready to play again. Whatever was bothering him is now over and he has now moved on. Taking that toy away was so two minutes ago dad… I’m sure that is what he is thinking.

My son has many levels… the more in-depth and harder to control tantrums usually begin with laying in the floor and banging his head against whatever hard surface he is near… the floor, a cabinet, chair, his bed railings, etc… which creates more crying… It’s a vicious cycle.

We usually just have to pick him up and take him out of the situation or he will lay on the floor and just… well lay there. This past Monday morning he had woke up in a foul mood and so after getting his diaper changed (on the floor of our bedroom) and his clothes half on, ready to take him to daycare, he cried through the whole process… I gave up with his lack of cooperation and so I decided okay, I’ll just leave him be and he will discover I’m not paying attention to his fit… and calm down… Well, calm down yes, but our son is a prideful little man. Fast forward, five minutes later, and well, I come back to peek in on him from the bathroom and there he was, still… same place, hasn’t moved from the hardwood floor… one green sock on with the other laying on the floor next to him, I could see the hint of the alligator stitching from where I stood, he did have a shirt on, but his shorts were lying next to the alligator sock. The child just laid there, one finger in his mouth and eyes fixed on Special Agent OSO.

No one can break my child’s pride.

Now, where does he get this from? This is still an unanswered question.

3 comments:

Nicole said...

Boy your house seems to be getting along just fine! Just to give you a heads up....the whining NEVER ends. I know, my 3 boys do it every day :) LOL, but it's totally worth it!

Edie Mindell said...

I agree. When you have little kids, you should be fully prepared to combat your ears into non-stop whining and never-ending streaming of tears. Because as we all know, they still don't how to express much of what they want, they would usually end up in crying when things go wrong. Be strong, believe me, everything's gonna be alright.:-)

Edie Mindell said...

Kids at that age really are amazing.:-) Because they can't easily verbalize what they want, we just keep on guessing, and they usually end up crying.:-)Funny, but I certainly missed those times with the kids.:-)