First of all, you should know that we went somewhere that was not child-proofed and had lots of stairs (which we do not have at our house so that means it's a complete novelty for Sawyer). There were also a lot of people packed into a small space AND there was a baby girl about 11-months-old.
When we arrived, Mike and I took our places. He was stationed on one end of the room and I was stationed on the other. For the first 45 minutes Sawyer literally ran from one end of the room to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Stopping only briefly to take the magnets and pictures off of the refrigerator, venture into the laundry room and zone immediately in on the ax that was in there, try to climb the stairs repeatedly, make himself comfortable in the master bedroom, grab at the food on people's plates, and make the little baby cry.
What? Yes. The other things? Those are completely expected and boy-age-appropriate, I would say. Admittedly, I think the kid-less couples were watching Sawyer's boundless energy and thinking, "Maybe I'm not ready for kids just yet" and the couples with kids were thinking, "I'm really glad that's not MY kid." But he wasn't being bad. He was just being... a toddler who does, in fact, have boundless amounts of energy and curiousity.
It was when he stepped on the 11-month-old's hand and made her cry. (Not on purpose, of course, but who wants to be the parent responsible for the kid responsible for making a baby cry? Not I.).... or when he actually took her toy phone and threw it AT her (right after I told him, "don't throw that") and made her cry again... that's when I started to feel a little uneasy.
I'm used to Sawyer being the little one you need to watch out for... not the big one who needs to be careful around the little one.
It appears we have entered a new dawn of parenting, folks. Discipline is starting to rear its ugly head, and I am at a complete loss. While I'm certain that Sawyer does indeed know what the word "no" means, he rarely, if ever listens. To be quite honest, most of the time when I tell him no, he smiles and does it again. I tell him no again. He does it again. I pull him away from said thing he isn't supposed to be doing/touching/whatever, he waits until I put my guard down and runs back to do it again. My guess is this is all pretty normal toddler behavior, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't shake my confidence just a tad.
Darn. Just when I had mastered the feeding/sleeping/clothing/taking care of basic needs bit of parenthood, now I have to add a new talent to my resume? Enforcer of rules. Teacher of proper behavior.
Wish me luck.
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| My Wild Man |
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