Discipline

To be perfectly honest, and all jokes aside, I fear for the future of mankind, filled with adults who have never been disciplined, who have received awards just for participating, and have zero attention span due to increased technology.

That being said, I praise Aryn just for being super cute and I give her rewards like candy for peeing on the potty. What's that going to teach her? I'm fairly certain her teachers aren't going to give her candy every time she goes to the bathroom at school.

We are low-key disciplinarians. We are not opposed to spanking, but we have never experienced a situation where spanking would be warranted. Sure, she's been bad, but it's been nothing a few seconds on the stairs (her time-out spot) hasn't cured.

And I have to admit, the post-time-out hugs and "sowwy" is kind of awesome.

I've seen both sides of the spectrum - the mom who believes any kind of discipline is being a "bad mom" and follows the "positive parenting" approach. You know, the mom whose kid is flipping out or hurting either herself or another kid, and instead of picking said kid up and reprimanding them, she calmly strokes their kids' hair and explains to her - calmly - that that behaviour is perhaps not the best reaction to a situation. I am the mom watching this, rolling my eyes, and quietly praying that that kid doesn't amount to anything past a McDonald's employee.

And then there are the parents who believe in corporal punishment. Where anything done wrong first gets a time out and then the mother of all spankings. Yeah, that one is fun to be around. You just stand there, mouth agape, going against all of your "I Shall Not Judge Another Parent" philosophies and then you get the "you're not my kids' parent" speech from said parent and you have to accept that everyone parents differently, but you take note that you will never parent like that parent.

We fall somewhere in the middle, I would say; solely because we don't physically reprimand our child at this point in time. Which is not to say spanking is wrong: both my husband and I were spanked as children, and we have both grown up to be pretty responsible people who know right from wrong and don't have any ill feelings towards our parents because of said discipline. I honestly don't remember any spankings and I don't cower at a raised voice, despite what some "psychologists say".

My husband used to get disciplined with a wooden spoon. That ended when he grabbed the spoon from his mother and ran away from her, forcing her to laugh at the situation. Mind you, he was 26 at the time...

Ok, I'm kidding. But that really did happen!

Regardless of our take on discipline, today I have never wanted to be a "spanking parent" so much before. Which is not to say I wanted to physically harm my child - believe me. I was just running out of ways to discipline her and I was searching for something else.

This situation actually started yesterday... with a very stubborn, refuses-to-listen two year old who wanted to run, run, run all around Costco, despite her cold. Even with bribery of a new movie (which she didn't get!), it was awful. Then we went for lunch at the food court and she threw up everywhere. In the middle of the food court. At noon.

Everywhere.

In her defence, she has this awful cough and she couldn't stop coughing (due to running away from me 18,000 times) and she must have gotten over-worked and her little body just couldn't handle it. But afterwards she wouldn't nap and was grumpy and just pain ol' pissed off for the rest of the day.

Bed time was early last night.

And then today, our day started off bad. Aryn was up at 5:30am, talking and laughing in her bed to herself. I went in there, asked her to please be quiet, and to wait for her new monkey clock to open his eyes before she got out of bed (monkey clock was set for 6:30am).

She wasn't quiet, but she stayed in her room, lights off, door closed, until 6:45am. Then she opened her door, happily called out for me, and came into our room.

Covered in poop.

And by "covered in poop," I mean covered in poop.

*cue two distressed parents quickly jumping out of bed at the speed of light*

Turns out our potty training has hit a new high. This kid knows she's not supposed to poop in her underwear (or, as she was wearing, her diaper). So, she took off her diaper.

Sat down on the carpet.

And pooped.

Why she didn't ask us to go to the bathroom, I can only assume is 100% my fault for constantly telling her it's still sleep time when she wakes us up at ungodly hours. Perhaps, instead of saying, "Go back to bed!" at 5:30am, I could instead make her go to the potty and then put her back to bed. But my brain doesn't function at 5:30am. After a night of leg cramps, needing 2 arms to roll over (and bring the pillow between my legs with me), and having to go to the washroom 3 times a night, 5:30am is the worst time to be waking me up. Mama needs her sleep.

But that's not an excuse, because toddlers who are learning to potty train should get dibs on when they wake up. But taking off their diaper and pooping on the carpet is not the way to go about doing that.

So there I was, at 6:45am, giving my kid a shower while her dad cleaned poop off the carpet, then ran downstairs to unthaw our carpet cleaner that was in the garage all winter (which, btw, I still need to bring upstairs and wash the carpet... I wish I had a maid).

And it got worse from there.

She was grumpy. She threw fits for no reason. "Aryn, do you want juice or milk for breakfast?" *freak out* "Aryn, do you want to watch a movie during breakfast?" *freak out* "Aryn, can you let Bauer outside?" *freak out*

So then we went to Auntie Aleesha's house for coffee. Within an hour, she'd had 3 time outs for pushing Hunter. Then, Auntie thought it was hilarious that Aryn pronounces "frog" like the big ol' "F-Word" (which, in all honesty, really is friggen hilarious), brought out a frog book to listen to a 2-year old drop F-bombs, to which Aryn apparently didn't appreciate, so she took the book and threw it across the room as hard as she could. Then she threw a tantrum. On the floor, rolling, kicking, screaming.

That was the second last straw.

So I picked her up, told her we were leaving (*freak out*) and carried her, kicking and screaming back to our house. I laid her on the couch, turned on Disney Junior (oh, how I love thee) made her lunch, and when she threw her next fit because I wouldn't let her eat the entire jar of pickled beats (last straw), I carried her - kicking and screaming - upstairs to bed. Where she closed her eyes instantly, said, "Nap, mommy," and I left.

Perhaps she's stir-crazy. It has been 14 months of winter (er... 6 months... but still...). Perhaps I'm stir-crazy. Maybe she's acting out because she's aware of her impending doom of becoming a big sister. Maybe she eats too much sugar.

She woke up at 2:30, and peed her bed. I'm off to start cleaning. Wish me luck.