babyfruit: the miscarriage blog and motherhood diaries

Another Time Out, Please

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I have no idea what this means: My toddler LOVES time out. She actually begs for one.

"Please can I go in the corner for time out?" she asks us. G. and I look at each other, trying to suppress smiles but also completely baffled by this.

Is she trying to psych us out? If our 2 1/2 year old already has a firm grip on reverse psychology, then I'm ready to call her a genius unless this is typical stuff. I just don't know!

We used to give her several warnings when she was doing something "bad."

"If you pull the dirt out of the plant one more time and throw it on the carpet, you're getting a time out!"

"If you hit your mommy one more time with that fork, you'll get a time out!"

Sure, we'd sometimes end up giving her about a dozen warnings - sounding like that old broken record that we all remember from our own childhoods - and we'd fail to follow through on our threats. But when we did follow through, we'd put her into her room, sitting her in the middle of her floor, then we'd close the door telling her she could not come out until we told her she could.

At first she'd cry and cry like it was the worst thing in the world.

Then she started to get quiet. And we soon realized that there were many fun things in her room so that version of time out was actually like quiet play.

So we've chosen a Time Out Corner - right by the front door away from all distracting and fun objects, face toward the corner where she can stand and contemplate the errors of her ways. We try to be very specific about what we feel she has done wrong, why it is wrong, and then encourage her to consider her wrongdoings with her face in the corner.

When we retrieve her from her Time Out Corner, we ask her if she is sorry for what she did and ask her to explain why, then we ask her to say she is sorry. I don't know what the hell I'm doing and have no idea if any of this is correct. But even though she is only 2 1/2 years old, she definitely seems to understand what we are saying and doing.

But now when she does something wrong, she tilts her head and smiles as we open our mouth to scold her and says, "What? Am I going to get a Time Out?" Big Cheshire Cat grin and a glint in her eye.

"Yes, you're going to get a Time Out," we say in the sternest voice we can muster with what I'm sure looks like Fake Stern looks on our faces.

And then she says, "I want a time out. Can I have a time out now, please?"

Tonight, she was talking back to G., and he made the Time Out threat. She actually said "May I be excused so I can have a time out?" (We're teaching her to say "May I be excused" before getting up from the table. Guess she learned that one.)

What are we doing wrong? Frankly, she isn't really doing anything horrible - just talking back or throwing things in the house or at one of us. And she usually does those things when frustrated about something.

What should we be doing to let her know what is good/bad or right/wrong and how do we escalate the discipline if the harshest thing we do - the Time Out Corner - is something she really enjoys?

Mother Tingle

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If you've read any of my past posts about my painful breastfeeding experience, you'll know how fraught with angst I was about bonding with my daughter. Throw in a little post partum depression that went untreated for nearly a year and a struggle with identity once I realized that yes, a baby would interfere drastically with my career, and you will get what I'm about to say.

I still struggle with mommy love. It just isn't part of my every day. I have some posts in this blog when I have had those moments of "Wow, I'm a mom and ain't life grand," but frankly, they aren't the norm.

Right now, I'm just pleased that my daughter can communicate, and for a 2-year-old, I think she communicates quite well. Because we can speak with one another, I'm feeling much better about being her mom. Yet I still feel I lack as a mother in so many ways.

There are some recent articles out there citing research that children don't bring happiness. And then the requisite responses that the report is bunk because children have brought certain reporters tremendous joy. See Does Having Children Make You Happy? and Lisa Belkin's Motherlode blog post/2009/04/01/why-does-anyone-have-children/ and the one that sparked the recent debate Think Having Children Will Make You Happy for some of the background on this topic.

I'm not one of the moms who can say "Oh, my child brings me tremendous joy and endless satisfaction." But after all the early struggles, I can say "I love her" and "Isn't she pretty amazing?" I like her as a person and realize she is still forming her personality but am pretty impressed with how strong it is. I don't long for the days when she was an infant because frankly, that was hell, I couldn't figure out what she needed, and she was too dependent on me.

So in my constant journey with my daughter, I realize that it is okay not to touch the nirvana of motherhood but to just be good to her, as attentive as possible, respectful of her, and loving toward her.

We do hug and kiss a lot as a family, but what I find interesting is that she doesn't snuggle. I never know exactly what is right/wrong or normal/abnormal in my relationship with her, but recently I spent some time with a dear friend and her daughter. They snuggle. Mine often pushes me away when I try to embrace her into snuggling mode with "No Mommy, get away."

And then I feel my insecurities kick in, and I just want to somehow teach her to snuggle or convince her that it is a great thing to snuggle with mommy. When it comes to Love Languages, I'm thinking she is a "Quality Time" and that's fine, but I want my daughter to snuggle with me. I'm selfish and demanding that way.

The other night, out of the blue, she said "Snuggle with me, Mommy," and I felt the clouds part in the sky and light shine down on us. Then she proceeded to push me face down on her bed and climb on my back and tuck herself onto my back like a little bug, giggling.

"What is that?" I asked her.

"I'm snuggling," she replied.

"That's not snuggling," I told her and tried to roll her off of me to demonstrate what snuggling was.

"Yes it is," she retorted.

It took me a few days to realize that her idea of snuggling was what her dad does each night. He leans over her while she is lying in bed - usually on her side or stomach - and gently puts his face next to hers and breathes deeply. She giggles and sighs and usually falls asleep easily.

She was trying to do the same to me because that is what she thinks "snuggling" is. I had to admit that was cute and clever on her part.

But I still wanted a proper snuggle.

The last few days, she has been asking me to cradle her in my arms.

"Hold me like I was a tiny baby," she says.

So I've complied.

"OK, but you have to lean your head against my chest to be like a tiny baby," I instructed.

And what a freakout but damn if I don't get that weird feeling in my heart like I did those rare times when she actually breastfed as an infant. It feels like a rush and a tingle in my chest. At first I was wondering if it was because she is so heavy and maybe I was going to have a heart attack, but it happened even sitting down.

The Mother Tingle.

Then last night, she said "I want to drink milk from your booby."

What?!? Where the hell did that come from? Whenever she says these things that I know she didn't get from us or from her Dora or Elmo shows, I can't figure out how these things get into her head.

She grabbed for my breast. Then she leaned forward and made suckling noises at my chest.

I can understand if she were breastfed to an age where she understood that breasts meant milk. But she only breastfed for the first 3 weeks of her life then stopped suddenly due to the breastfeeding hell. That was it. She hasn't seen other children breastfeed, at least not recently.

I'm just eager for us to spend some quality time with my friend and her little girl, The Snugglers. I'm hoping that she'll see what mommy/daughter snuggling is all about and maybe get it in her head that she wants to do it, too.

Does your toddler snuggle with you? Or are you struggling with displays of affection because it just isn't your kid's Love Language?