Ain’t too Proud to Bribe
Many Uses of Candy
I had a friend come over and she told her two year old to sit in the green chair. I was shocked to see that her son SAT in the green chair!! I then asked, “How did you teach him his colors?” She replied, “Well, I used to be a teacher and I so I taught him his colors.” I then found myself vowing to NEVER tell this “friend” that I, too, used to be a teacher – good teacher, bad momma!
Our sons were literally only a week apart, so there was no excuse there. Nope, I just had to get busy and teach my son some colors, which sounded easy in theory, but in reality, it was not. You see, my two year old owns his own pair of rock climbing shoes BECAUSE he loves to climb! He loves to defy gravity in every room of the house and at every park. Just yesterday, he said, “Me, jump high. To the moon.” Then he jumped from his play yard onto the green plastic slide and it then propelled his little thirty-pound self straight into the grass. I didn’t hear any scary thudding. (trust me, I know what a scary thud sounds like, been to the ER three times already with my son). My son, then got up and looked at me and began laughing. A scary, demonic laugh that only a true Evil Conevil can master. So, you can see my dilemma right? . How do you teach something as trivial as COLORS to a stunt devil?
My mother came and visited; she is a fourth grade teacher. She brought with her Sixlet candies. While my son was playing outside and my mom was sitting in a lawn chair watching him, she would give him one Sixlet at a time and tell him the colors. He would receive the Sixlet only if he repeated the color of it. After my mother’s four day visit, my son was saying colors and remarkably getting them right, most of the time. Damn you pastels!
So after my mom left, I continued re-enforcing the Sixlet color wheel and am proud to tell you that my son can now sit in the GREEN chair…. not for long though, but I’m sure he can sit for just as long as any other stunt devil can!!
Signing off,
Proud Momma of a Physically-Advanced-Child
Letting go of the Kate Gosselin in Me
Can You find the Toddler?
We’ve all seen the show at least once, Jon & Kate Plus Eight, or now it is Kate Plus Eight. If you’re like me, you probably were empathizing with the kids! It always seemed as though Kate was neurotically cleaning, wiping, and screaming at the kids if they messed up her perfectly clean kitchen or dared to do arts and crafts inside the house. I remember distinctly one time Kate was cleaning the floor while her kids were asking her to play with them. It was during this episode that I thought Kate should be committed to an OCD clinic with Dr. Drew! She was missing everything! Her kids were being cute and interacting with their environment, but yet Kate was hell bent on keeping her house clean instead of playing with her kids.
I thought to myself that I would never be like that… but then my son turned two! Yesterday he grabbed the whip cream can out of the refrigerator and sprayed whip cream all over the floor and was putting his hands in it and rubbing it all over the place. My initial reaction was flip out! I grabbed the can and instantly jerked my toddler up and began washing his hands while thinking to myself that now I have ANOTHER mess to clean up. Then my toddler went into the office and grabbed a crayon and began drawing on the coffee table WHILE I was cleaning up whip cream on the floor. I came into the living room and was about to lose it!! Why couldn’t he just keep the house clean AND play at the same time? Why does every time he play mean MORE work for me??
But then I realized it. I was being Kate. She flipped out and made everyone miserable around her. That was her trademark: Obsessive-Kate-that-will-control-ALL-of-her-kids. No one will do any activities that were not planned. Everything has a time and place – no room for spontaneous fun.
So, instead of me flipping out and grabbing the crayon from my son, I decided to go get some paper and sit down and color with him. It’s just a coffee table. The crayon marks can be wiped off and the whip cream can sit a little longer on the floor. It’s just me here with my kids. Who cares if the house looks like a toddler lives in it? So, I sat down and colored with him.
It sounds simple to just interact with your kids. Whenever they are misbehaving, they are telling you in their toddler words, “Play with me.” I need to really learn how to let go and not CONTROL every thing in my house. My toddler should be able to play and make messes and I should be able to play with him and overlook the messes sometimes. Because if I don’t learn to give in and just let him be a kid, then I will miss all these “kid moments,” and if I miss these moments, then what was the point of me choosing to be a stay at home mom for?
Signing off,
An OCD Mom in recovery
Scout's Experiences 