The Rules in Scooters World . . .

There are some days that parenting just bites.  Truth.  It's not all fun and simple and I know you know what I am talking about.  These are the moments that fall under the heading 'For their Own Good'.  What's fun, after all, about a preschooler having a cascading meltdown because they want milk with a blue label and you only have the milk with a red label, then they want the big blue cup, not the small green cup, and they want mommy to pour it, not daddy and they want to help you pour and they want you to put it on the counter not bring it to the table?  A process that should have taken 30 seconds becomes a twenty minute ordeal with lots of screaming and crying and most of it has to do with the fact that your son's afternoon nap was cut short by a barking dog and a slamming door.

It's in those moments you usually wonder what happened to your plan.  You know 'the plan' even if you didn't call it that.  Think about it.  One day, you found out you were pregnant with your first child and you were happy, scared, overwhelmed and in some cases even relieved.  Then reality sets in and you start wondering how you are going to do it all.  I mean, thinking about terrible twos and teenage driving is pretty daunting and you start wondering how you are going to do it, really.  So you start looking around at other parents and you begin to make 'the plan'.  It's different for everyone, but essentially it has the feel of 'I'm not doing that like my parents, my siblings, my friends, or that really strange woman I just saw at the grocery store'.  You figure you'll be able to stay calm, you'll have structure and discipline that doesn't involve screaming, you won't do things like let your child eat junk food or use the tv as a babysitter, you'll be able to handle it all better than most of the people you see around you, because you are you and your child will be your child. 

Even if you are nervous, the hormones are telling you that it will be great so you keep trucking on, making decisions before the child is even born that you feel like will give them a great start and help you maintain this wonderful, healthy balance that you are going to provide for your child while they are growing up.  And then at the hospital after the rigors of childbirth, they hand you this perfect baby.  And of course he's just beautiful and perfect and he's yours and everything is going to be wonderful, right?  At some point, reality sets in.

For me, reality set in pretty darn fast.  I was determined that my first, Tyler, was going to breastfeed and therefore, I didn't want him to have ANY formula supplements, or a pacifier in the hospital or anything.  I even made signs for his bassinet and set family members to watching the nursery staff like hawks during his initial evaluation and bath.  But the birth had been long and hard on Tyler and his blood sugar level dropped within an hour so without a second thought, my mom and I okayed a formula supplement (done with a tube, not a nipple to avoid nipple confusion - still on the plan! :) ) in the nursery to help him out.  Of course, then when he came to the room, he wasn't really hungry, but later when I tried nursing, Tyler latched on like a pro - smile for mom - and then promptly fell asleep.  We couldn't keep him awake to nurse!  What?  This was not in my plan!  This really went on for a while which led to Tyler being jaundiced, my milk not coming in for almost 6 days, having to supplement with formula anyway (done with a medicine dropper at 3 a.m. because I was a masochist, I guess), giving Tyler colic, a home UV belt system that he wore for a week during the day which meant he couldn't sleep in his bed which led to months of him not wanting to nap in a bed, breaking out the pacifier to give me some peace . . . You get the picture.  Kids might be part of our 'master plan' in life, but they don't follow a plan, ever.

Don't get me wrong - Tyler was a great baby and is a great kid.  We figured out most of the quirks and worked out the kinks on the way.  He ended up being a pro at nursing and never really took the pacifier or a thumb or anything.  And it was probably best that the first few weeks were so hard because I dropped a lot of my preconceived ideas about how things SHOULD go right away.  That doesn't mean I didn't try just as hard when they handed me my second baby boy!

So - back to some parts of parenting being NOT so fun . . .

Understand, my four year old, Scooter, is one of the pickiest eaters I have ever seen (and I grew up with a brother who ate nothing but peanut butter, pizza and doritos for years).  He ate well as a baby, but stopped around 15 months.  He has a list of about 10 healthy foods that he will eat and likes.  Some fruits, one vegetable, yogurt, peanut butter crackers, cheese, you get the picture.  But for dinner, he only likes Rice.  Just rice.  Minute Rice should pay ME for how much of this stuff I make.  And I make it all the time because at the end of the day, I really want our family to sit together for a meal at the table.  He gets other healthy stuff during the day and is growing, so I know he's getting something good.  The other food is in front of him at dinner and sometimes on his plate.  He sees it, smells it, watches us eat it (I'm going with an osmosis theory here I guess, but I know he won't go to college eating this way).  The only major problem with this whole scenario besides the fact that the rest of my family could do without rice for a whole year right now, is that even Scooter sometimes doesn't want the rice.  He gets sick of it - I wonder why?  On those nights, we insist that Scooter choose another healthy food to eat for dinner or there will be no snacks later, etc.  He's usually pretty good about it, but he's also four. . .

Last night dinner consisted of an herbed chicken dish that had a look to it neither one of my preschoolers was touching (tasted awesome btw), some cut up apples and of course, rice.  When Scooter decided he didn't want the rice, we encouraged the apples on the table.  But Scooter wanted a waffle with syrup.  'It's not breakfast time, it's dinner time, come eat your dinner'.  He wanted the waffle.  We told him he could have a waffle after he had some rice or apple.  No.  We eventually got to the point of saying, you have to have something healthy first - go choose some peanut butter crackers, yogurt or raisins and then you can have the waffle.  No.  You can see where this is going, right?

Scooter had started asking for the waffle before dinner was on the table and he and I had talked about it.  I told him 'This isn't a restaurant, you can't order whatever you want.  You need to eat the dinner that mommy makes.' This made him laugh.  He said 'But I want to have whatever I want'.  I told him 'Well so do I, but that's not how the world works'.  He thought for a minute and started to tell me that he wanted me to have what I wanted and he wanted the world to work that everyone could have what they wanted.  Wow.  Cute, right?  But also not realistic and an unplanned teaching moment at it's best, so I took a deep breath and jumped in.  I explained that even though it would be nice if everyone could have everything they wanted all of the time, it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.  What if the thing that someone wanted was bad?  He looked confused for a bit and asked, 'Like what?' I said 'Like if the thing that someone wanted was to hurt you, that would be bad and it isn't something that they should have - even if they wanted it'.  This sounded good in my head and would have worked like a charm with my oldest, Tyler (the logical one), but Scooter is my worry wart so it backfired.  He got all stressed out about the thought of someone wanting to hurt him which led to me comforting him.  Teaching moment out the window.  Way to go mom!  And the heightened sensitivity led to the waffle thing getting out of hand at dinner.

Scott and I held our ground though, which is a good thing.  Even though what I really wanted to do was whip out the toaster and pop an Eggo waffle into it so that I could get on with my evening, we held firm.  Scooter eventually ate 2 bites of a peanut butter cracker (the deal was he had to have 4 whole crackers before the waffle), but no more.  We didn't give in and he didn't get snacks before bed and he didn't have the waffle.  I know this is supposed to be good.  He supposedly learned that he has to eat what we give him, yada yada yada.  But the child slept all night and popped up this morning asking for a waffle for breakfast.  Since I made such a big deal about it being a breakfast food, not a dinner food, I got out the toaster.  I am not sure the lesson actually sunk in at all.

And it's got me thinking all over again about how many ways I can screw these kids up.  They are so different from one another.  Everything that worked for Tyler, doesn't work at all for Scooter, etc.  Tyler is logical and sensitive, but Scooter is imaginitive and a worrier.  I can't use the same techniques, the same arguments, the same anything.  So even when I think I have part of this parenting stuff figured out, it all flies right out the window when faced with the next kid.  Riley is not quite 3 yet, so I haven't figured out yet where he's gonna fall on the spectrum, but I have a feeling it's gonna be more about drawing a hard line.  I talk everything through with the older two, just in different ways.  I have a feeling Riley isn't going to do much listening, just doing.

So, I wish I lived in Scooters world today.  A world where everyone gets whatever they want and no one wants to hurt you and everything goes according to plan.  After all, we held our ground all night - he had to eat A, B or C before he got the waffle right?  He kept asking all night 'Can I have the waffle now?' And I said 'Did you eat what I asked yet?' No. No waffle.  He told us we were being mean to him, we told him it wasn't mean, but we have to do our jobs as mom and dad which means making him eat healthy stuff before sweet stuff.  But when he got up this morning he hadn't eaten those things yet and he got the waffle, just because it was breakfast time.  And he ate it on his favorite car plate.  And I cut it up just like he liked it and helped him make sure there was at least a drop of syrup on every piece.  And the milk was the blue label milk in a blue cup, etc.

Who won here?  Not me, I think.  Mom always tells me, don't let the kids know they won, even if they do win.  Does Scooter know he won?  I'd like to think not, but I think he knows he just has to wait us out.

Have a good day and God Bless!