Butt off

N was playing around while we were finishing up a meal the other day at a restaurant. Chopstick in hand, wrapped tightly in his little hanky, he told me it was a rocket.

“10 – 9 – 4 – 5 – 3 – 2 – 1 ….  BUTT OFF!!!!”

Five, three and zero-point-something

This week, I caught myself looking at the children and thinking “goodness, where has the time gone”, so many times. The children are growing and growing fast. M is already been with us for quite a few months, and still I refer to him as the newborn.

At this time, S remains our biggest challenge. She is a bubbly child, exuberant by nature. She is sunny and adventurous, always willing to give a new thing (or a new food) a try. She laughs at everything and talks a whole lot. Dammit, she can carry on an entire conversation without anyone else having to contribute. She is curious and always needs to know why or who or what or where. Regardless of whether it actually means anything to her. She loves to joke and thinks she’s incredibly funny. Sometimes the sheer fact she thinks she’s funny makes her quite funny, if you get my drfit.

As delightful as she is when she is agreeable, she has, in the past six months, learnt to be disagreeable. She is annoying, willfully ignoring what she’s been told to do (like greet people she meets or saying goodbye or thank you), rolling eyeballs, giving rude responses, refusing to apologize (that’s not really new – she’s always had a problem with apologies), being excessively nasty towards N (including physical abuse like pinching and hitting), the list goes on.

I’ve never had to think much about how to respond to poor behaviour because I’ve largely never had to put up with it. But in the past six months, we’ve found ourselves scrambling. I’m reading books, reading mommy blogs, asking people advice. I’m trying to figure out what works best to teach S some manners and proper behaviour. Because she is stubborn and defiant, just telling her to do it will never work. Nagging certainly has no effect (does it ever?). Credible threats should work, but they don’t always. Sometimes they backfire. I think that’s largely my own mistake in being inconsistent – sometimes I act on my threats, sometimes I don’t. Not good. Time outs have worked a little, but again, not all the time since I don’t consistently adminster it.  I guess it’s pretty obvious the lesson here for me is consistency.

N, who turns three soon, has become a delight. Since he’s learnt to communicate better, he no longer has tantrums and has become much more predictable. His eczema continues to bug us all, but for now, I feel I have a handle on it. We continue to rely on steroid creams and antihisthamines, but we’re now attempting Chinese medication which he is agreeable to. He has good days and bad ones, but overall, we are managing his condition much better.

N is mischievious, chatty (in his own incomprehensible way), and as exuberant as his sister. He is headstrong and takes to ignoring when told what to do, which annoys everyone, but since he is quite loveable, he gets forgiven for it. Not a good plan for the future, but it is hard when we have this many adults in the household, to implement some proper way of responding to his bad behaviour. He is playful and loud and adores the very ground his sister walks on. Still, he has learnt to whine pitifully when his sister threatens or snatches things from him (and even when his sister does nothing more than parrot him annoyingly). If he’s in a good mood, he doesn’t even notice her pinches or kicks. He’s a tough fellow with incredible focus. We noticed today his determination to achieve perfection (whatever that may mean to a three-year-old) by his desire to only play on two things at the playground. He wanted to be able to do them JUST RIGHT. He loves to draw and has a gazillion things to say about his art work. He is an orderly child, only when it isn’t required of him. Just try asking him to put his toys away and he’ll leave them all strewn around the room (or he’ll just insist his sister can pick them up, which she does!!). In a nutshell, he’s another stubborn nut.

M, the “newborn”, is a total and utter delight. He coos and gurgles like a charming little baby. And then he screams his head off like an insane banshee if I’m not around to nurse him (he will drink from the bottle – he just needs his quiet nursing time, which he doesn’t always get since I run around so much). In general, he’s the easiest of the lot right now. Just put him to the boob. He loves it. Today D and I were wondering what he’ll turn out to be like. Sunny and funny like his sister, who has no persistence whatsoever built into her, or his brother who will doggedly do something till he gets it right.

I realized a few days ago that S is in my face so much that she gets the bulk of my attention. M gets a lot of my time (not necessarily attention) just because of the nursing. And poor N gets very little of me. Just because he’s happy to be with any of the adults in the house, not just I. Quite unlike S who has always been very attached to me. So as a resolution (and my continuing effort to better myself as a parent), I plan to institute S-only-time and N-only-time. So that I get to know my children one-on-one and learn what makes them tick.

And they say I stay home and twiddle my thumbs all day. I say parenting is hard work. I’m just lucky enough to do it full-time.

Sportsfans

Watching a bit of indoor soccer.

Contemplating

S at the swim meet this past weekend.