The Best Medicine
There are a lot of things I wish someone had told me before Alexis was born. Like, sleep while she's a newborn because it ain't getting any better any time soon.
You guys, she's six. SIX. I still can't count on her to sleep through the night. She just ... doesn't need sleep.
I also wish someone had warned me just how fantastically frustrating kids can be.
Alexis has been on a streak of sass lately, which HOMEY DON'T PLAY THAT. I have no patience for the talking back business so it's a fast track to time out around here. Confounding the issue is that the kid has recently taken to saying "I didn't!" when she gets caught red-handed doing something.
For example, this evening Alexis said something stupid and I scolded her for being rude to me. Her response was, "But I wasn't!"
I WAS THERE, CHILD. Should I start videotaping our conversations so that I can display the evidence on a big screen TV? I'll grant the kid that it was a minor violation, but since I've been the Sass Police lately, it shouldn't have surprised her that I called her on it.
Regardless, I sent the kid straight to time out. She knew it was mostly because she denied doing anything wrong and blah, blah, blah.
A few minutes passed by and I went to talk to the kid about earning her way out of purgatory.
As I sat on the step, Alexis' eyes locked on mine. She had purposely opened them as wide as she could as she stuck her lower lip out ever so slightly. "I'm really sorry, momma," she said.
Nicely played, don't you think? We chatted for a minute about what she had done. I held my face stern as I told her how disappointed I was with her behavior.
As I gave her my best, "You are SO in trouble" glare, it started. She turned up the corners of her mouth ever so slightly. She turned the lights on deep in her eyes and they began to glow brighter and brighter as her mouth turned up more and more and more until she finally let out a little chuckle.
"I really love you, momma," she gushed as she began to giggle.
I know when I'm being played and I was being played. Like a fiddle. But do you know how contagious that child's laugh is? It's ... OYE.
I don't have a recent video, which is a travesty that I will fix soon, but here:
THAT LAUGH. OMG.
It is a weapon of mass destruction. It is so contagious that there is absolutely no way you can't join in.
She knows it. She uses it against people.
It's fantastically frustrating that the kid has already figured out that laughter can fix so many things in this world.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Reader Comments (6)
My niece (almost 3yrs) put lately a toy in purpose in an odd place and went then to the kitchen to get my sister with: "Mommy - I can't find my toy, you need to find it for me."
Then she watched me sister crawling on her knees through the children room searching for a tiny dollhouse TV. After a while she started grinning and not much later she fell down to the floor laughing like hell. Then she openend the tiny dollhouse closet where she had hid the tiny dollhouse TV and laughed even harder.
That was the moment were some education should have kicked in, but my sister could not do anything else than rolling on the floor laughing with her little girl.
The laughter of a child is what makes mother earth a good place.
100 percent normal. My son does the same things. At 7, almost 8, the talking back is waning somewhat. The denying is still there. I can witness him do it and he`ll insist he didn't. Time out for him too. And lavish praise when he admits a behavior (coupled with punishment depending on the behavior but often its just little stuff, spilled drink, Wii remote left on the floor.) Hard for me to remember that it's developmental and like anything else it will pass, at least temporarily, until the next phase!
i just love that child
I'm pretty sure they're made that way so that we continue the species. :)
She seriously does have the BEST laugh. The best. And that video is pretty amazing, even if it isn't the best...
when we were in the drive thru for the pharmacy, my future little politician asks if she can have a lollipop. i told her if she is offered one she may take it, but she cannot ask for one. so when the girl comes to the window, she's all smiling and laughing and waving, then asks me if the child can have a lollipop. when it comes through with the medicines, I hear the little politician say "a smile and a wave gets 'em every time" and bust out laughing.
where DO they learn this stuff???