Sunday, May 10, 2009

On futility of trying to reason with a three-yr-old

I wake up today with a clear idea and resolve to not let the every day minutiae get to me. "I will enjoy staying home with kids, even if it kills me" is my mantra. SubHub leaves, and the minute the door closes behind him, DS goes berserk. He started off by climbing up on a chair that is known to move when DS climbs on it and from which he fell on more than one occasion. This doesn't stop him. Then he proceeds to pull a very heavy basket with an iron and all ironing paraphernalia from atop of bookcase. He is looking for a toy, which name he cannot pronounce. I tell him to stop, and he won't. He keeps on repeating the gibberish, and I keep on not understanding and at this point begging him to stop pulling the basket. (I am all for natural consequences and would've let the basket fall on him, if not for the heavy iron inside.) I finally give up, take out the basket myself, and lo and behold, the toy is not there. Miraculously, nothing else attracts DS's attention, and he moves on to more interesting things.

Two minutes later I find kids' moons and stars all over our living room floor, the floor that was meticulously cleaned a night before. I bought these stars for kids' projects, but for the last three or four days the only project they were used for is messing up the apartment. I tried throwing them out, but DD begged me not to do it, and I wasn't cruel enough to throw out her stuff because her younger brother is doing mischief with it. In addition, she volunteered to clean it all up, and she did. So this is the conversation that sent me straight to the computer:

SW: DS, why did you throw this stuff all over the floor?
DS: (silence)
SW: (very calmly) Well, now you will have to pick it up. Take the box and put everything there. Where's the box?
DS: I don't know.
SW: It was standing here five minutes ago. Please bring it to me.
DS: I don't know.
SW: (after spending ten minutes trying to find the darn box, unsuccessfully) Where is it?
DS: I.Don't. Know.
SW: You just used it, no one used it after you. What did you do with it?
DS: (blank stare)
SW: Where is it, it couldn't have disappeared?
DS: (blank stare)

SW leaves the room because she has achieved her boiling point and knows that blow up is near. She runs to the computer and blogs about the futility of trying to reason with a 3-yr-old. She calms down and proceeds with her day, resolved to enjoy her children, even if it kills her.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, as a matter of fact we own 2 sets of Legos. But playing with them doesn't constitute getting into trouble, so why bother?

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  2. Good thing Shlomik doesn't break anything at home other than his toys. On the other hand, we were walking home from Hadash yesterday and he sees two brothers, Hispanic, at least a year older than him, playing and says that they're fighting. My mother tells him they're playing, so he runs over and punches one of them in the stomach...

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  3. In our home no stone is left unturned. Everything gets touched, moved and stands a chance to be broken. More often than not, his toys don't interest DS.

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