This day in history

Asher learned to pronounce the word no with precision and accuracy.  Memo to his 18-month-old highness:  Effective immediately, all former whines, screams and expressions of distaste will now be replaced with whiny, screamy, expressive interpretations of 'NO!'.

Owen sat in the bathtub tonight and said completely spontaneously:  "I'm so, so cute.  Sometimes I just want to squeeeeze myself."  [Editor's note:  which of the mortal sins is vanity?  #1 or #2?]

Asher was in the worst mood today...as if something physical was bothering him...but it was beyond me what it might be.  Later I discovered that he had wolfed a large portion of a bag of dried cherries that I keep in my bag for emergency distraction needs.  The diaper blowout at 6pm finally clued me in.  Poor guy probably had a pretty sore tummy all day.

I think I learned something about Owen today.  It's sort of obvious, and yet I often overlook it as a factor when I'm trying to figure this kid out.  He wants to be a GROWN-UP...desperately.  It is his prime directive.  I suppose that is a typical first child thing.  One of the things I struggle with is that he will acquire a grumpy, defiant attitude waaaay more quickly and waaaay more often than I think is healthy, and I start to worry and imagine 10 years into the future how destructive and horrible this will be in teenagerhood.  I wrestle with him and myself daily trying to make progress on attitude; never really understanding his motivations and what's going on inside him.  Here's today's scenario.  We were at music class this morning, and Owen LOVES listening to the music in the car, is always super-excited to go to the class, thinks the world of the teacher, etc. etc.  But despite the pre-class hype, often when the class starts up he clams up, gets a grumpy attitude, and gets kind of non-participatory.  If I try to include him, he snubs me and gets too cool for school.  He gets very adolescent basically.  Here am I the mommy, NOT UNDERSTANDING what this is all about.  He loves participating, playing and joining in half the time, and then the other (unpredictable) half the time, he's a grump.  I vacillate between ignoring the moodiness and goading him into participating, thinking that a 3.5 yr old does needs to know it is not acceptable to have an attitude like this (and is it ever, really, even as a teenager?).  Back to the story...one of the times he's grumpiest is during the 'lap sit' songs where we bounce and swing the kids to the music, etc.  He won't let me touch him and looks at the floor.  Today an idea hit me.  I handed Asher to Owen, and asked Owen to do the bouncing.  Asher complied happily enough.  Owen LIT UP.  His chest puffed visibly, and he sang along, bounced, kissed Asher on the face, tried to make him laugh, the works.  For the rest of the class he was a different kid, and went around helping the teacher put things away, get things out, and was just a million bucks.  I suddenly got it...dumb mommy.  Owen does not feel like a little kid inside and really resents being treated like one.  He wants to be an adult, and most of the attitude revolves around the authority issue...he feels a bit wise in his own eyes for the ripe old age of 3.5.  Treat him like an adult, and voila, you have a very happy kid on your hands.  It was an eye-opener for me...this is obvious stuff, isn't it.

Well, now that I'm finally getting it, I'm still confused about how one approaches the issues.  I philosophically think it's pretty darn important that he not seem too wise in his own eyes and that he rest comfortably and happily in his place as child under the loving authority of his parents.  At the same time, I want to parent him in a way that doesn't exasperate him, and uses his desire for independence as a springboard to true healthy actual independence.  So is this wise-in-his-own-eyes-ness something that we need to try to eliminate...put our feet down and over and over again let him experience that he's NOT an adult, and try to bring him back down to size?  (That sounds harsh, just exaggerating the point in order to make it.)  Or is appropriate to encourage his feeling of power while still enforcing the limits...he *is* a kid, so is there harm in letting him think he's 'all that' as long as we're not letting him run wild?  e.g., do I alleviate the attitude by doing things like letting him play the grown-up role in the class today...or do I rather find a way to insist that he participate cheerfully as a child like everybody else?   Obedience seems to be inversely correlated with his perception of his own grown-up-ness, I must say.  But I find the tension of knowing how much to challenge and how much to indulge his sense of himself VERY CONFUSING.  I would like this to be black and white.  It probably isn't.

Well, I hope other parents have this figured out or there are a whole lot of people in this world not knowing a lick about how to rear a child!!