Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

discipline

Lessons learned

Week 2, Day 3 done. We completed week 2 yesterday, and it was a good day for learning a few running lessons. Until now, we’ve had a relatively easy time finding childcare, fitting the run into our schedules and letting it be a refreshing sort of event in the early or middle part of our day.

Not so yesterday. Phil had an all-day training for substitute teaching, so our run was scheduled for after 4:30 p.m. — after he’d been in a seminar all day, after I’d been with the kids all day, and right around supper time. Thankfully, my grandparents bought us a jogging stroller/bicycle trailer for Christmas and it arrived last Saturday. So, we planned to load up the kids in it and get our run in for the day.

A little easier said than done. We changed and stretched, then had to cart the stroller up from the basement, reassemble it, air the tires and secure the kids. By then, we’d already been stretched for 10 or 15 minutes and it was dinner time. I started our run with a bad attitude, thinking there was no way we’d be able to get this done, that I’d be starving and because it was the end of the day, I’d be extra worn out. Some of those things were true, but five minutes in to the routine, I was feeling good. The kids were mostly happy. Corban looked a little uncomfortable but he put himself to sleep. Phil worked harder than usual because he was pushing 55 extra pounds. But all in all, it was a successful end to the second week.

I don’t really like running that late in the day, especially with supper waiting in the oven, but I learned that mental obstacles can be overcome and discipline is about sticking with the committment even if conditions aren’t ideal.

On to week 3.

Authority and the inner drill sergeant

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?