As Piper grows older and wiser, I realize I've been cruising. Not that motherhood has been "easy" so far. But man, this disciplining thing is TOUGH! Up until recently, my sweet babe only wanted to please. If she did something "wrong" it was because she didn't know any better. Ha! That is no longer the case!
I'm so proud of her new abilities that seem to grow every day. But along with these new abilities comes boundary pushing. How far will Mom go? How far will Dad go?
Brooks and I have both had moments in the last week where we were faced with the true struggle of earning a child's respect and teaching her what's right from what's wrong. A child, non the less, who isn't developed enough to form a sentence and gets more information from our tone than our actual words. This is going to be challenging.
Brooks was feeding her breakfast and after telling her for the ump-teenth time to not throw food off her tray he got a little fed up. So he yelled. (He obviously hadn't had coffee yet. Daddy really doesn't EVER yell.) Piper stopped mid-throw, looked up at him with eyes bigger than dinner plates. Her eyelids brimmed with tears and her chin started to wobble. She was so hurt by her daddy yelling at her. He crumbled inside, and later when telling me, it was his turn to experience tear brimming and chin wobble.
Then I got my turn. It was the end of the day and the end of my rope. Piper was pushing her limits just to see how far they would go. I finally realized I was no longer calmly asking her to not do something but had elevated to yelling, fruitlessly. I realized the time had come for a new tactic - time out. So I put her in "time out" in the laundry room. She meekly cried and pitifully tapped on the door until I took her out a mere 60 seconds (read: years) later. It took me 5 times longer than she was in there to console her out of hysterics. But I think I won that one. She hasn't tried to push Those particular boundaries today....
I often second guess myself, is it THAT important that she doesn't play with the dog food? I mean really, it didn't kill me when my sister dared me to eat it and I did. (I really wanted my big sister to think I was cool...) Then I step back and try to look into the future. I picture us at friends' houses. Friends with unfamiliar, food aggressive dogs. I picture Piper going to stick her hand in the dogs bowl and not listening to my warning not to, because, "hey, I never listened before and I'm still here!" Yeah, I guess it's important.
You could say I'm being paranoid projecting into the future like that. And maybe I am. But here's the thing. Whether it's getting into dog food or running across a busy street, Piper needs to know that her mom and dad know best. Even if we don't always make the best decisions for ourselves, it is now our job, our responsibility, to get Piper to adulthood with all 10 fingers and toes intact. I'm not naive and I know I won't be able to protect her under all circumstances and in all situations. But I know I have to try my best.
I want our child to be a happy, confident, respectful human being. And when I look at friends' kids who are that way there is one common denominator. Their children Listen to what they say because the parents have earned the respect of their children. I'm still trying to learn how they did that, but I think it has something to do with us, as parents, "knowing best" and doing our best to be right.
So here we go. A new chapter in our journey of parenthood. Discipline, with a capital D. Wish us luck....
