The other morning Nick, Henry and I were laying around on the couch together. At one point Henry reached up to pull on my glasses and I said (in my most firm mothering voice) "NO Henry. NO." And do you know what he did? Did he put his hand down and say, "Oh, sorry Mama. My bad. I didn't realize those were off limits". Um, no he didn't. He melted down into a puddle of pitiful. His entire body going limp as he SOBBED about this HORROR of not being allowed to rip my glasses off my face.
The meltdown lasted about a minute. I don't think there were any actual tears. Then he looked up at me, and half smile on his face, and then he did it. He went for my glasses again. As if to say, "SEE how much I want them! You wont allow me to get that upset again, will you??" And when he got the "NO HENRY!" for the second time, it was back into the meltdown. "WORST MOTHER EVER!" he seemed to scream and he once again collapsed in my arms in the pits of despair. But I was not moved. We have been working on the word "No" a lot around here. He cannot convince me with these fake sobs.
When he picked his head up off my shoulder for the second time, he slowly raised his hand again. I gave him a look. A "don't even try it" look. And his hand dropped. He was over it. Moving on to the next thing to explore. Nick on the other hand, he was not over it. That's when he said, full of heart ache for Henry's despair, "You broke his spirit! He is just a husk of a baby now." My husband, tough as nails. Henry may not be able to convince me with all those fake tears, but Nick is another story entirely. I never knew I would have to be the tough one around here.
Honey, that look is known around the world as "the mom look". You will make it a lot, a whole lot.
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Gosh, I laughed!
ReplyDeleteI love this post :)
I joke (but it's not really a joke) that Kendra will be saying, No, Mummy, No to us soon. We say it to her so often. She looks at us, smiles, and goes right back to what she's not supposed to be doing :)
Haha this is too funny because, you know what, I already know I'll have to be the tough one of of me and Tim.
ReplyDeleteYou see, we often look after his niece (who is 10 and, thanks to the craziness that has been her life so far, doesn't really have the typical "mum and dad" in her life and so we try to spend as much time with her as we can so she gets the attention she craves.) This means that we have had to do our fair share of disciplining and setting down rules and it didn't take me long to realise that Tim is far too soft and I, thanks to my work in childcare, am rather more tough than he is.
Never mind the old saying of "you just wait until your father gets home"... it's the mommys that the kids should be scared of these days ;o)
sorry - that comment above was me, I didn't sign in properly
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