Though I am not Bill Cosby...
Kids say the darndest things! They can also be little demons, their hell fire being the fever you will catch and the smell of sulfer (no, worse) coming from their diaper. Case in point, I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged. If anyone out there is not familiar with this Ayn Rand book, it's almost 1200 pages and very engrossing. I got it at Christmas and have finished 600 pages in about 7 days. Anyway. So I am sitting with a two year old at nap time, rather she is sitting on me for two reasons: one, she has big brown eyes that gets all dewy when she says "your lap? your lap?" and makes you feel all special and loved. Two, she will stop her crying and not wake up all the other childrens if I let her. She sat and I read my book. I then got up for a moment to do, oh hell I don't remember what, but I froze when I heard a thin but piercing tearing s0und. And there she was with a page in hand, a page separated from my engrossing book, and those dewy eyes looking at my face as if they could save her.
In an angry whoosh, I swooped her up under her armpits and pulled her to the other side of the room, behind a partition from the rest of the kids. I put her on her bottom and I said lots of stuff about being very sad with her (that's PC talk for "you made me mad" but we're not allowed to say mad) and how ripping books is not okay (that's PC talk for "you did a bad thing" but we're not allowed to say bad). I said, "Do I go to your house and rips up your books? Can I come to you room and rip up your books?" I then fixed my page, which I had thankfully already read, the best I could with some tape. Doesn't look too bad. I asked her to kiss the page to "make it better" and then hug me and say she was sorry. She did and I could tell that I had freaked her out a bit with the emotion I showed. (I'm very patient on the whole. Even this incident, I think, showed patience.)
I thanked her and put her back with her blanket but I did not sit there. I sat on the other side of the room next to a different child. Every 3 minutes, she said, "Your lap? Your lap?" and I refused. "Not right now. Maybe later. Not right now." Then, with incredible understanding for a two year old and pretty impressing language skills too, she said, "I won't tear your book anymore."
"Promise?" I asked.
"Uh-huh."
So I came back and let her sit on my lap.
In an angry whoosh, I swooped her up under her armpits and pulled her to the other side of the room, behind a partition from the rest of the kids. I put her on her bottom and I said lots of stuff about being very sad with her (that's PC talk for "you made me mad" but we're not allowed to say mad) and how ripping books is not okay (that's PC talk for "you did a bad thing" but we're not allowed to say bad). I said, "Do I go to your house and rips up your books? Can I come to you room and rip up your books?" I then fixed my page, which I had thankfully already read, the best I could with some tape. Doesn't look too bad. I asked her to kiss the page to "make it better" and then hug me and say she was sorry. She did and I could tell that I had freaked her out a bit with the emotion I showed. (I'm very patient on the whole. Even this incident, I think, showed patience.)
I thanked her and put her back with her blanket but I did not sit there. I sat on the other side of the room next to a different child. Every 3 minutes, she said, "Your lap? Your lap?" and I refused. "Not right now. Maybe later. Not right now." Then, with incredible understanding for a two year old and pretty impressing language skills too, she said, "I won't tear your book anymore."
"Promise?" I asked.
"Uh-huh."
So I came back and let her sit on my lap.
posted by Gnomey G at 7:17 AM
1 Comments:
I think you're method is better, if more complicated, than my dad's was:
"Get my belt."
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