Wednesday, April 11, 2012

A Three Year-Old Is the Best Birth Control EVER

At least mine is.

Before I say anything else, I LOVE MY SON MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD AND I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIM.

However, he's driving me insane. His second year, the "terrible two's" were relatively uneventful. We skated through that year. There were occasional fits and tantrums. And then he turned three. Still not a big fuss.

Last month someone flipped a switch and replaced my little boy with a POSSESSED CHILD.

It's hard. And trying. There's alot of crying by him and me.. He's pushing buttons and limits. He's throwing fits. It's like walking on eggshells. Sometimes when I do give him exactly what he wants, I don't give it to him HOW he wants it. Like milk with one ice cube in the orange cup with no lid. God help me if I don't get a portion of the request correct. Sometimes it's just easier to give him what he wants. Others I fight him on. I mean, that what parenting is, right? Making your kids hate you and feeling guilty about it?

The other night I asked Isaac what he wanted for dinner. He said he wanted a hot dog. "Two ones" to be exact. I said that he could eat one and then have another if he finished it all. He came back a few seconds later to ask for the second one. I asked where the hot dog went. "I gave it to Luna." Sigh.

This proceeded to happen with the subsequent grilled cheese. And green beans.

Finally, he seemed really excited to eat taquitos. I let him put them on the tray and put them in the oven. He watched them heat up through the oven door.

And then he bit into one, decided it was too hot, inedible and gave it to Luna. (Note: at this point Luna has had a lovely dinner of hot dogs, grilled cheese, green beans, and a taquito. Isaac has eaten NOTHING.) I told him if he didn't eat the taquitos he would get a time out. He fed Luna another one. To the time out chair we went. He started crying. And saying he wanted his taquitos. So I brought him one, which he proceeded to throw at me. Score another one for Luna. I knelt down to give him a stern lecture, and HE KICKED ME IN THE FACE. He got spanked. Put in the bathtub, into pjs, and sent to bed with no dinner.

By the time he got sent to bed, he was no longer upset. He called out to me about 20 minutes after I had tucked him in. "Mama! I'm hungry!"

This is where my heart started to break. I was torn between my motherly instinct to feed my hungry, crying baby and sticking to my guns to prove a point. A point that I wasn't even sure he was old enough to understand. He came downstairs, crying and I held strong. He went back up to his room and I could hear him crying and saying he was hungry. By the time Ben got home, he was quiet and I was the one crying.

What was I supposed to do? Ben talked to him. Told him what he did was bad and he couldn't behave that way. We eventually caved and gave him goldfish pretzels and cheese.

This scenario, along with others and the overall attitude of my child these days, has made me understand why people either space their children out by more than 3 years or have more before the first hits 3. It's mentally, emotionally, and physically EXHAUSTING. I am so drained, I have absolutely no desire to even think about having another child until Isaac is well past this age.

2 comments:

Stacie said...

It gets better, promise. Just think of this as another 'phase'. I remember being at the end of my rope with tantrums (the child, not me). As soon as I thought I got it all figured out, she was done with them for the most part.

Hang in there.

CJ said...

hahahahaha. And you only have 1 kid.

Try twins... :)