Trials of motherhood
May. 26th, 2002 10:18 pmThis 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
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