Day 7. After a morning of garage sale shopping where we scored a play kitchen, a foot-propelled toy car, a couple of bags of clothes and a steal-of-a-deal on the cutest little girl kilt and cape I’ve ever seen, let’s just say the 2-year-old was not the sweetest little girl on the block.
She has started to give me this scrunchy nose, snickery, whiny type of look that her father sometimes uses to indicate he’s joking about something and I’m taking him too seriously. Hers is pure whine and it’s most often seen when she’s not getting her way and thinks she should be. In the world of a 2-year-old, that seems to be all the time.
I’m having to practice my lower-tone-I’m-serious voice — the one the Supernanny is always telling parents to use to demonstrate authority. I’m working on it.
Of the two of us, I’m definitely the softer one when it comes to discipline, authority and correction. If I’m tired, or the baby needs me, or I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal, I let Isabelle get away with just about anything. My husband, while not a strict disciplinarian either, by his very presence commands more obedience and respect. He also has a drill-sergeant voice. Thank you, U.S. Army.
Right now, I feel like I have to be the strict one because if not me, then who? The grandparents? Not likely. Why is it grandparents let their grandkids get away with all kinds of stuff their kids never could have?
So, I’m learning to say, “No.” And stick to my guns. Even if it means hearing more whining, seeing more of the Scrunch, as I think I’ll call it, and accepting that Isabelle is going to run to someone else to see if she can get a second opinion.
She’ll thank me for this, later, right?
Grandparents earn the right to be the good guys by first being the bad guys. And she will thank you later when she grows up to be a well rounded woman!
There were times that I was just like miss Isabelle 🙂 Of course, I don’t remember that far back, but I have been told of my little attitude. I thank my mom and dad for putting me in check. I have seen those girls 12 years down the road, and they are the most snobby, whiny, “I know everything” teen girls out there. She will thank you. It may take a while, but she will realize it later.