Now what???

For those of you have read the 30 some odd posts on this oh so sporadic blog of mine, you will see a trend to my writing.  No, I am not talking about embarrassing The Accountant with references to the Wiggles, or embarrassing myself, for that matter, with pictures of my, um, shall we call them, inequalities? 

“You are talking about parenting,” you reply, “isn’t it obvious?”

Uh….yeah…but it goes deeper than that.  Many of my posts center, in some way, around an age old paradigm of childrearing that I just can’t seem to get through my thick skull.   It is a paradigm that can be so nicely summed up in four words, but takes a lifetime to remember.  That piece of general wisdom that sounds great in your head, but pitifully inadequate when uttered to a parent in crisis.  A phrase that supposedly explains everything from breast feeding difficulties to performance in school and social graces, but doesn’t give you any answers in how to deal with the problem itself: every child is different.

Okay…I get it, my girls, regardless of their similarities, are different.  Now what???  When I signed up for this parenting gig, I knew it would be difficult.  But along came K, and while she challenged me and made me sit up at nights wondering when I could run away to live on a tropical island with serving drinks as my only responsibility*, she and I came to an understanding:

I am Mom, and what I say goes.  You are child, and you need to listen to me and learn from me.  I will try not to psychologically damage you**, and promise not to inflict any physical damage beyond an occasional spanking when all else fails. 

Once K and I got that hammered out, we were golden.  Today, I can give her the evil eye from 20 yards away, and she’ll immediately stop what she’s doing with a look of contrition on her face.  She seems to know what I expect of her the vast majority of the time and lives up to those expectations.  She takes No Thank You Bites with minimal whining.  She is our EASY child.

Well, then along comes The Monkey and that agreement I had made with K is supposed to stand.  Right?  I expected The Monkey to watch her sister, follow her example and learn from her mistakes (yes, she does make some mistakes, believe it or not).  I imagined K sneaking into The Monkey’s room at night after a bad day, to tell her that, “Yes, Mom is strict and you don’t want to cross her, but she loves you and that’s why she does it.” Isn’t that what sisters do?  Apparently not…because The Monkey has devised her own agreement, one with which I have not consciously agreed, but she apparently had signed, sealed and delivered in her own little mind.   And it goes a little something like this:

I am child, I am cute child, I can get away with anything if I smile.  I like time-outs, I can stand spankings and I will go hungry for days if need be.  I will not eat anything other than a chicken nugget, and if you ask me to, I will gag on it and throw up at the table.  I will live by my own set of rules, regardless of what rules you try to put on me.  You will like it.

Apparently The Monkey is as opinionated and long winded as me.  Hmm.

So, I ask again, now what??  As I type this, she is sitting on the couch, television off, no toys within reach.  She will sit there all morning rather than eat a bite of her cereal, cereal that she picked out at the store.  She will do it and be happy.  She will ruin my plans for the day because by sticking to my own set of rules, however different they may be from hers, I have inadvertently given her the power.  Nice.  Now what???  Serving drinks on a tropical island is sounding better and better.

*I had these fantasies, as I am sure most new mothers do, at 2 AM while trying to feed a colicky infant with severe reflux.  We were living in Brazil at the time, the beach was only a few hours’ drive away….it could have happened.  But, I am glad it didn’t.

**to the best of my ability