Tuesday, July 7, 2009

He's my difficult child

Let me start by saying that I love and adore my youngest, but he is difficult!!!! Especially when compared to his older, almost always perfectly behaved, brother. He really hit a new level of bad this last weekend though.

We had taken the boys to the local pool for an afternoon of swimming. As the evening came to a close we decided we would each take one child to the dressing room to change them. I got the youngest, which he was fine with until he realized the older one was going with dad. He started screaming and pulling a fit before we even made it to the dressing room, but I was not deterred. After all I'm a fantastic mother and I could handle the fit.
We get into the dressing room and he is screaming and kicking and thrashing. I lay him on the bench, throw my leg over him and get him undressed. It was easy. Then I tried to get his clothes on....The kicking and screaming escalated to the point that I could not get any clothes on him and eventually he even kicked his way out from under my leg. He then started running and screaming around the locker room. Still I persevered, first I tried reasoning with him, "it's too late to go with daddy, your naked and daddy is gone, you just need to get dressed now and then we can go find daddy." He screamed louder and tried hitting me. Then I tried threatening, "if you don't get dressed right now we're not going to Subway for dinner." He screamed harder. Then I did something that I really honestly never do, I spanked him, twice on his bare bottom!!! He kept right on screaming and kicking as if nothing had happened. Finally I gave up and realized that I'm actually a horrible mother that has no control over her child and said "fine, lets go get daddy". So out the front door we go, my youngest still screaming for his daddy and yes, still completely naked.

This isn't the end of the story.

So we drive home, I'm lecturing him the whole way about what a naughty boy he is and listing all the things he did that were unacceptable. When we get to the house we tell him he needs to go to bed because of his behavior. He starts crying and screams "NO, I'm not going to bed." So I have to grab him by the arm and drag him up the stairs kicking and screaming. I plop him on his bed and tell him how unacceptable his behavior is. Then through tear drenched eyes, with his chubby little hands on his cheeks he weakly asks "Are you mad at me mommy? Why?"

I dunno what I'm gonna do with him.

5 comments:

Lisa said...

Angela your posts always make me laugh! I think everyone has a "difficult" child. Mine happens to be a girl that cries at everything!

Anonymous said...

I refer you to my e-mail about the whuppin classes. I am not at all opposed to spanking, i no in this day and age....gasp!! But in all honesty, our children have to think we are a little crazy and that we could snap at any minute and they DO NOT want to be the focus of our craziness. That is my theory anyway. Good luck, i think he looks like an angel. :)

Love you,
Monica

Crystal said...

Dude...sounds like my oldest. (She's 11 now - it does get better - a little....hehe) I seriously could spank my oldest daughter until my own hand hurt, and she didn't care - the screaming still continued endlessly. But when their hands and faces are all cute and chubby you just can't stay mad at them very long can ya? ;)

Shelley said...

Hey, this sounds like some days we've had at our house with our very own second child. I have to admit, we've actually dragged her super heavy car seat in from the car and strapped her in it in her bedroom just to get her to stay in time out so we didn't have to hear the screaming anymore. I'm sure she'll have memories of being chained down in her own home (in the car seat anyway).

Aaron and Melissa said...

I can DEFINITELY relate to tantrums in public. This is a tough age! I am the first to admit. . .I don't do well with toddlers! Hang in there and know that you are not alone.