I very much want to be a good mother. So I do whatever research I can. Mostly that involves watching reruns of Super Nanny while eating ice cream. One of the tactics I've long employed, since being introduced to it by Super Nanny, is making sure to be down at eye level as often as possible when instructing children. I'm a tactile person, as are my children, so I like to be as eye level as possible, maybe even stroking their faces while talking.

However, Super Nanny failed to explain how to best handle attempting to meet your child at eye level, if your toddler takes this as an invitation to spring on your back. Repeatedly. And at 40 lbs, this isn't a small matter. He's large, but he's surprisingly quick. We have many moment in which behavior needs to be addressed and firmly. However, toddler climbing over his mother, who is trying to manipulate herself into whatever contortions will continue to allow instruction and eye contact, doesn't really allow for the firmness most situations we find ourselves in. As Cinco is often in on whatever chaos is prompting my correction, she certainly takes advantage, but being smaller and not quite as adept as X-Man, she tends to yank on my neck, while trying to climb over my head. I'm starting to think that Super Nanny is married to a chiropractor and has ulterior motives here.

I have yet to see Super Nanny suggest how to address the delightful situation that is created when your toddler removes his underwear and puts his pants back on. Normally this would be fine, unless the toddler ignores the fact that he needs to use the restroom. That is until he is in downward dog pose and the floodgates are opened. He is actually in the perfect position to admire his exploits, and sure enough, he maintains the pose while muttering "Wow." Cinco claps in appreciation and makes a beeline to the rapidly expanding puddle. Argh.

This is why I've explained to the father figure that it really doesn't bother me that X-Man typically strips off his underwear off in the living room before dashing to the bathroom. I enjoy watching him hustle away, while grasping his bare bum, as if to hold everything in during the journey. Whatever it take to not have to clean up Lake Erie in my living room.

So we put the Christmas tree up. Because, for a brief moment, I forgot that I have an eight month old and a two year old. A two year old who is currently standing on the table fighingt his chicken nuggets. Go ahead and judge me. I'm too busy judging Mac's dance moves. He wants to know if I would give him "fives." I guess so. I've kept him in swimming and soccer as much as possible because the boy needs to burn all his excess energy. It had not occurred to my to turn dance music on. This could actually work well for me.

X-Man is having a ball with the Christmas tree. And by ball I mean taking the glass ball ornaments off the tree. And throwing them on the hardwood floor. And then crying when they break. He convinced that it's an evil trick on my part and that if he just throws the right one it will not break. Yeah.

I've made it clear that X-Man and I are at an impasse as to how he should behave when his wishes are thwarted. And when it comes to the Christmas tree, what we have is a failure to communicate. Actually, we communicate just fine, it's that neither one of us wants to hear what the other is saying. X-Man clearly is sick of hearing "DON'T TOUCH THE TREE!" And I'm tired of hearing "MY MISMIS!"

He has the same reaction to me saying no in these circumstances as any other circumstance. He tries to hit me. Now, we've tried time outs, we've tried mommy holding his hands, we've tried gentle redirection, we've tried standing in the corner, we've tried yelling "You don't hit Mommy!" I'm bowling zero right now. And pretty much every time I go, but that's a different tale of woe.

So, I tried a new tactic, the duck and weave. He tried to hit, I jumped backwards. He looked doubly annoyed. Which is odd, since I'm the adult here and he's the temper tantruming toddler. He flailed away again, I dodged again. Greater rage, accentuated with a slight shriek of anger. I was hoping to distract him out of his tantrum and thought I could get him to chase me. He took one look at me scurrying away and collapsed in front of the Christmas tree wailing. Full on child prostrate on the floor, head in hands, big old tears pooling on the hardwood.

Cinco has been taking notes and often does the exact opposite of X-Man. Whereas X-Man's default reaction is weeping, wailing and ragey, Cinco just laughs. Crawling away from mommy during a poopy diaper change. cue the maniacal laughter. Pull the empty hamper down, crawl in it and get stuck and scream, first in rage and then decide it's funny. Because an empty hamper in this house is really that funny an oddity. Pull yourself up into a standing position anywhere in the house, alert mom with your laughter, proudly proclaiming your great strength. Climb up the stairs and get stuck....better not say anything because mom will probably get mad.

So Cinco joined in the fray. Shrieking with laughter from across the room, which drew a reproachful glance from her older brother, she decided that what this needed was some hands on loving from her. So she sped her way across the floor, seriously this child hauls diaper like no one before her, and went to comfort the poor abused X-Man. And by comfort, I mean crawl onto his back and pull his hair. I figured he had it coming. Somehow not being able to hit his mother is life ending, but his baby sister mauling him, well that's hilarious. "Mama, baby silly." Yeah, she's not the only one son.

I'd continue on the odd behavior of my children, but I think the father figure is annoyed with me. I asked him to watch Cinco while I wrote this. I only roped him into it after she helpfully unplugged my computer, attempted to eat the cord and then deleted half a page of my work. Apparently having to watch his offspring is off putting to the father figure because he's retaliating by trying to get Cinco to walk. They are all conspiring against me.

It's been a bad day. A day of ignoring me, It doesn't matter if you're the father figure, my children, my students or contractors. No one listened to me at all today. I wish I was exaggerating to make a point. But I'm not. It was a bad day.

It had its moments. I managed to look like an acceptable mother on the book of faces. Well. the fact that I was on the book of faces probably negates any of the benefits I would have gained by appearing to be a good mother. Oh well. There was a game on Facebook where you were to add the phrase "with a chainsaw" to the end of the last book you read. My entry was "Thomas the Tank Engine's Happy Birthday Surprise....with a chain saw." I was pleased because this indicated that I had actually read something to my children. Something other than the riot act.

But I was back, reading the riot act away, later that afternoon. We were on a tight schedule. Between work and ring around the receiver with various contractors--trying to wrap my head around the fact that there was a $1300 swing between bids for the same job--I needed the children to quickly and quietly get ready to go. I had to take the father figure's work boots into be repaired, as they looked as if his heels had been the only brakes on his theoretical motorcycle. We had swimming lessons, soccer and voting to do before I could get home to meet the next contractor. Tight schedule people. And it was clear from the thumping upstairs that obedience wasn't on the list of things to do. Baba was the ring leader. Quite literally. I walked into their bedroom and saw Baby and Mac and X-Man all chasing Baba, running in circle.

Sing goddess, sing of the wrath of the mother. Whoo boy did I lose it. The older three stood before me, heads bent, with all the appearances of remorse. Remorse that they got caught, I'm sure. And I raised the roof. X-Man was a little late to the party. He had continued to run around the circle of remorse but even he could not ignore my wrath. He hasn't seen me like this, possibly ever, so he was obviously concerned that he handle the situation correctly. He pushed his way to the front and center of his siblings, turned his face heavenward and began to bellow. I was upset enough that I ignored him at first, in fact he wasn't even on my radar. But despite the severity of my lecture, I could see the allegedly contrite children's mouths begin to twitch. That did not help my blood pressure. But I did pause to observe X-Man's depiction of "Child Mid Lecture." He was still bellowing, a bellowing similar to the sounds he makes when he is set on the potty. He was rubbing his eyes as if there were tears there, an academy award performance if ever there was one. "Are you sorry for being naughty X-Man?" He picked up on the change in tone of my voice, removed his hands and betrayed his dry eyes. We made eye contact, his little brown eyes had that gleam in them.
er there was one. I stopped mid threat and looked at him.
And then in a moment that, while amusing makes me just a wee bit terrified for the future, he spun around, and began pushing his siblings "GO GO GO!" 

The scheme is strong in this one.

It's amazing how much I get accomplished when I am forced to stay home. My minivan and I are locked in a battle of wills. I insist that it lasts until next spring. It keeps showing me how little control I have in this plan. I suppose this is just what I deserve, as all the problems seem to stem from the side of the car I ran into a telephone pole during the ice storm last winter.

On the other hand, I'm pretty much unpacked. Of course the downside of that is that ALL the toys are now unpacked and spread throughout the house. Batman was quite literally cooling his heels in the fridge this morning.

I've always known that the time would come when my children would recognize my authoritative count down, in a firm voice and emphatic hand gestures for what it is, a bluff. I don't ever know what I'm going to do. Mac used to hop to at the sound of "five", in recent months he's been dawdling until two, but he still gets going. I don't know if it's because X-Man has never seen the consequences of failing to respond to my most serious counting, or if it's because X-Man doesn't understand how counting works or if it's because he's X-Man, but he called my bluff.

Now part of being pretty much unpacked is that I've actually moved still packed totes from the living room to my freshly insulated attic. In doing so, I made sure to leave all the baby items and maternity wear near the front, because my maternity clothes, despite my warning to the father figure, ended up in the back of the storage unit and we all saw how THAT turned out. Anyway, there were many trips in and out of the attic.

Before I was taken hostage by my car, I still had to get three kids to four soccer practices (no this isn't common core math, Baby's practices with two teams) so the tote moving and organizing was a work in progress. Mac was generally unnerved by the existence of the attic. X-Man was smitten but generally content to sit outside the door and observe mom. At  least the first day. By day two, the awesomeness of the attic had reached an undeniable level and so he just had to explore. Barefooted of course.

I caught him sneaking in. I'm a fairly decent reader of two year olds, as I was heading out for the next load, I could see the wheels turning in his head. He waited for me to leave, or so he thought. So I put on my firm voice and said "X-Man come out." He did not. So I upped the ante "X-Man, five, four.. .." thump thump thump, and there was X-Man. Well at least down to his torso. He leaned out of the attic, looked at me, cocked his head and disappeared again.

Well, huh. I guess I'll keep counting. I walked over and met his gaze. He firmly planted himself. "Why aren't you wearing pants?" Seriously I turn my back for two minutes. " Three. Two." Extra emphatic hand gestures to indicate the dire situation he was in. At this point, X-Man looked at me and raised one eyebrow. Well now all the firmness of the voice won't account for anything if I crack up now. "One." Eyebrow still raised. Bluff called.

"Well now X-Man, mommy's going to have to take you out of the attic." Boy did I show him. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

As I was cooking dinner tonight I found myself wondering how I fed my family before Pintrest. I'm not actually convinced that I did feed them before. Basically if the recipe has the words 'easy" or "crockpot" in the title, I'm all over it.

X-Man and I had a difference of opinion today. He thought the mandatory parents' meeting should take place on the playground, in the rain. And he was adamant. I tried to reason with him. And by reason I mean hold him on my lap with my hand over his mouth. He and I had a difference of opinion on the appropriateness of that tactic. He thought I should not do it. He also thought that he should thrash back and forth while arcing his back. Cinco thought that she should play dead in her carseat. But that got boring, so she ate her feet instead. She was singularly unimpressed with her brother's ability to throw a tantrum.

I finally had to carry the writhing X-Man out of the room. I looked him in the eye and said "You must stop this." He said "NO!" Oh, that did not go as planned. So I tried again, while adjusting my hold on him. "You must be quiet before I put you down." He responded "Help. HELP. HELP!!!" On that we agreed. I was most ready for help...of any kind. However, his pleas went unanswered, so he continued thrashing.  I continued holding and wondering if  Cinco was taking notes on the meeting, because I wasn't getting anything out of it. I was running out of options and was in danger of slipping a disc in my back, so I put the linebacker down and looked him in the eye. "X-Man, you must stop this now. You are being naughty and Mama needs to take care of the baby." Not really, the baby was holding her own, pretending she didn't know either one of us, but hey, I have to appear as if I am in some sort of control, or at least awareness of my children.

With red teary eyes, more than his typical amount of snot pouring out of his nose, X-Man looked at me, extended his arms and gasped "I want Mama."

Eh?

So I carried him back in, he was gasping still, but sat quietly in my lap. Until he realized that in his tantruming, he  had caused his Thomas the Tank Engine to fall to the floor. He slid out of my lap, carefully walked Thomas over to his own chair, set down the train and then laid his head in his arms on the chair. And began to weep. Very discreetly. Which, for X-Man, requires quiet a bit of talent. He had wronged Thomas. Or, more accurately, he and Thomas had been wronged by his mother.

I allowed them their moment.

There’s little more endearing than listening to Mac’s delicate, gentle voice bellowing “Did I do a good job?” at his soccer coach. He came running up to me with his earnest eyes to reassure me that he indeed do a good job. His coach said so.

We’ve been working with Mac on impulse control, among other things. He is sensitive to some noises and stimulation, and he has the mannerisms that indicate his brain is trying to process everything effectively. Unfortunately, these mannerisms are weird. He’s working hard to control them, and I’m touched by his efforts.

As we work on self-control, I find myself thinking about discipline. Or, as some forbearers have said, my lack of discipline for my children. It’s a moving target, that’s for certain.

I decided, before having children that I didn’t want to spank my children. It wasn’t for any strongly held feelings on the issue, I was spanked as a child, and while that might lead you to draw your own conclusions, I don’t feel burdened or abused or traumatized by my childhood. However, I didn’t want to use that method of discipline. I held to this resolve until Baba, not yet a year old, was emphatically determined to stick a fork in an electrical outlet.

Still it remained the mostest severest punishment in the family bag of consequences. I spent a year threatening Mac with it, counting down from five. He continuously hopped to, so I never really had to decide what followed “one.”

I realized the full extent that the few spankings I dealt out when I overheard a conversation Baby and Mac had with a student of mine.

Baby “Our mom spanks us SO hard.”

Mac “Yeah and it doesn’t even hurt.”

Baby “It’s not supposed to hurt Mac!” Judging by her tone, there was some eye rolling involved.

Mac “I know that!”

I’m not sure if this indicates failure on my part, or just how my heart was not into this aspect of child rearing. On the occasional times that spanking seemed to be the only solution to aspects of Mac’s behavior, he would reassure me “That didn’t hurt.” My response has been, “It’s not supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to help you focus.” His response “Yeah, that’s right.”

So pretty much, that disciplinary tactic has been shelved. I’ll occasionally ask Mac “Do you need a spanking to help you focus?” To which he will inevitably respond “No thanks.” So we keep rolling. And my children aren’t horrifically embarrassing hooligans. At least I can cope with their shenanigans. And they don’t seem traumatized. At least by how I discipline. Other aspects…..not so certain.