Spitting at Gram on Mother's Day
We went to Rome for Mother's Day weekend. Stopped off at Berry College on the way there and romped at the old mill. We couldn't get LC and H out of the creek. Had a bit of excitement when Cundy lunged for H, thinking that he was toppling over into the mill pond and accidentally pulled BooBoo into the drink. She sank like a stone, and Cundy struggled frantically to keep the curious 3-year-old out of the water while trying to hoist 40-lb. BooBoo out by her harness. I had quite a chuckle observing the fiasco. No harm done, except that BooBoo smelled like an old mill pond on the ride to Gram's.
Cundy's grandmother is an 83-going-on-16-year-old and we love being in her fine old house. She's a font of stories and local lore, a born raconteur. She's worth a book herself, but I'll leave that for later so I can get to the point here. Gram loves our babies--and us--with the passionate intensity she's famous for. But it's not always easy to love a 3-year-old boy...especially when he spits in your face.
Yes, H took umbrage to something Gram said on Sunday and spit right in her face. I was in the den and Cundy was upstairs when it happened, but we heard the hue and cry and came running. Gram was attempting to put H in timeout and he was stalking around, looking angry.
We've just started using timeout with H--after much soul-searching. He's got a bottle-rocket mind and a will as strong as his mama's, so we decided to try it when he began indulging in the ordinary 3-year-old pasttimes of hitting, pushing, squeezing, spitting, slapping, and head-butting. LC usually bears the brunt, but I was on the receiving end of a face slap last week as I tried to move H toward bed faster than he liked, and my cheek stung for an hour. Did I mention he was strong as a little bull and has bulls-eye accuracy?
Anyway, he's sweet 95% of the time, and if we keep him well-fed and -rested, we rarely see "Kenny"--our name for his mean alter-ego. But boy, when Kenny walks in the room--look out. We don't know why Kenny came out last Sunday, but when Gram tried to put H in timeout after he spit at her, we realized that as ambivalent as we are about using timeout, we are unequivocally against anyone else doing i--or at least doing it like she did.
My whole take on timeout is that it can't come across as punitive or shaming. It should be a calmly-delivered consequence of an action and it shouldn't be arbitrary. It's all about setting clear boundaries so the child knows where the line is and feels safe. When he chooses to cross it, there's a quick response and then it's over. I detest the routine of forced apology to the child's "victim." Man--I remember having to apologize like that to my sister and it just made me more angry--at her.
So when Gram put H in timeout from a place of anger and judgment, we felt our hackles rise. It put something of a damper on the rest of the day. Great learning piece for us though. The mirror of course is that sometimes we use timeout angrily. Gram just showed us what we must look like to H when that happens.
I always come back to gratitude as my base when it comes to the babies. No matter how much they drive me crazy, I remind myself how brilliant, beautiful, radiant, perfect and, above all, innocent they are, and I try to get grounded in the Big Love that defines my family. Sounds a little sappy, maybe. But these children were born from parents who love each other body and soul, and they came to us for a reason. They need that kind of love.
So we come back, again and again and again.