Trials of motherhood
May. 26th, 2002 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sierciaThis afternoon, I'm feeding Widget, And she's doing pretty well for her, especially considering that there's a house full of people, and she's very excited.
Anyway, she starts deciding she doesn't want any more sweet potatoes, but instead of turning her head, she starts waving her hands. I get her to stop, she eats a few more bites, and then wham, throws out her hands and knocks the spoon out of mine (and this was quite deliberate, you can tell the difference). And it pissed me off. I took her hand and slapped it lightly and said "No!" and she just started bawling. I didn't hurt her - I certainly didn't smack her that hard. Dada came over, gave her hugs and sympathy, and then we went on with the meal
But I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It seemed to get my message across, and she wasn't *that* upset either. It wasn't an act of rage or anything, I was calm when I decided to do it, and afterwards as well. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't know how I really feel about it. It's just kind of weird. Perhaps I'll have to discuss with Wiley.
It points out something else too - pretty consistently, my friends see me at my very worst with Widget. When I'm around other people is when I have the most invested in having her behave, or do what I want her to do (like eat quickly because we need to leave, or be quiet in a restaurant, or any one of 100 other things), partly because since my friends don't have babies, I want to minimize Widget's impact on our outings, and partly just because that's when I most want to do other things. And because of this, I'm at my very least likely to be patient with her, or accept whatever she's decided to do as perfectly normal whenever other people (besides her daddy) are around. Sometimes I wonder what my friends think of how I'm doing, but I doubt they'd be entirely truthful if I asked, so I don't. And if they were, we might not be friends no more, so it's probably for the best.
In other news, I think Widget is slowly achieving mascot status amongst![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scirocco's childless male friends. It's pretty cute.
Anyway, she starts deciding she doesn't want any more sweet potatoes, but instead of turning her head, she starts waving her hands. I get her to stop, she eats a few more bites, and then wham, throws out her hands and knocks the spoon out of mine (and this was quite deliberate, you can tell the difference). And it pissed me off. I took her hand and slapped it lightly and said "No!" and she just started bawling. I didn't hurt her - I certainly didn't smack her that hard. Dada came over, gave her hugs and sympathy, and then we went on with the meal
But I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It seemed to get my message across, and she wasn't *that* upset either. It wasn't an act of rage or anything, I was calm when I decided to do it, and afterwards as well. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't know how I really feel about it. It's just kind of weird. Perhaps I'll have to discuss with Wiley.
It points out something else too - pretty consistently, my friends see me at my very worst with Widget. When I'm around other people is when I have the most invested in having her behave, or do what I want her to do (like eat quickly because we need to leave, or be quiet in a restaurant, or any one of 100 other things), partly because since my friends don't have babies, I want to minimize Widget's impact on our outings, and partly just because that's when I most want to do other things. And because of this, I'm at my very least likely to be patient with her, or accept whatever she's decided to do as perfectly normal whenever other people (besides her daddy) are around. Sometimes I wonder what my friends think of how I'm doing, but I doubt they'd be entirely truthful if I asked, so I don't. And if they were, we might not be friends no more, so it's probably for the best.
In other news, I think Widget is slowly achieving mascot status amongst
scirocco's childless male friends. It's pretty cute.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-05-26 07:24 pm (UTC)I'm sure you just surprised her...but she has to learn 'No' sometime.
You *need* to live closer...
Date: 2002-05-26 08:16 pm (UTC)Sounds like you did good to me -- at 12 months Widget doesn't really know how you're going to react and your reaction to her knocking the spoon out of your hand is a life lesson, believe it or not. She needs to know what is *not OK* and by getting her attention you did that.
I personally would rather get Poopsie's attention with a stern look and words, but when she was littler it just didn't work -- she didn't understand. Now that she's almost three, words work WAY better and I haven't felt the need to resort to anything physical in a long time (other than the vulcan death grip when she's about to run into traffic!) I know about the weird feeling using any physical form of discipline. My problem was that whenever I ended up swatting her little hand I always felt like it *was* when I was in a rage.
So keep in mind that when Widget's older, words *will* work where they don't now.
Hope this makes sense. Livejournaling on two glasses of chardonnay might not be such a good idea. *grin*
Seriously, I do wish we were nearer to each other. Although my social circle is a little older and therefore more likely to include children, I'd love to be around someone *my own age* who has a kid.