I had a tough yesterday afternoon. We decided that Agnes should get some food from the grocery store while I watched the kids ride their tricycles in the enclosed area by the side of our house. Miranda and Eleanor had fun riding their tricycles, but eventually they got bored and starting playing with some things in the garage. I kept an eye on them, but they seemed to be doing okay.
Eleanor started playing with a strap on our jogging stroller while Miranda tried to put away her tricycle next to it. The jogging stroller was moving around and it was coming pretty close to knocking over Miranda. I told Eleanor to not play with the jogging stroller. She ignored me. I told her to let go of the strap. She ignored me. I walked over to her, and she instantly dropped the strap she was playing with, smiled, and started walking away. I’m pretty sure she understood what I was saying and was testing to see what she could get away with, so I told her that I was giving her a timeout for not doing what I said, and sat her on the steps. She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t protest.
Miranda came over to sit next to Eleanor. Each time Eleanor would start to get up, I told her she had to sit there longer. Miranda got up and tried to open the door to get into the house. She turned to me and started complaining, but Eleanor was still serving her timeout. Finally, I reached over and opened the door. It turned out that Miranda was leaning against it and she lost her balance and sat down hard onto her butt. She started complaining that she hurt her butt, and she still wanted to go inside. I told Eleanor to go inside too because I wasn’t going to be able to watch both of them if one was inside and the other was outside.
Miranda got over being upset about her fall and started climbing on a step stool we have in the kitchen. Eleanor started climbing up right behind her. I told Eleanor that Miranda was playing with the stool (yes, we shouldn’t let our girls play on the step stool, but they can sit on it pretty safely), but she kept on trying to climb up as well. I gave Eleanor another warning, and eventually picked her up, and sat her on the floor by the wall.
After about two minutes, I let Eleanor get up again, and I explained to her why I had given her a time out. She wanted milk. Eleanor tends to want milk when she’s upset. I gave her water instead because she had had enough milk for the day already. Eleanor started asking for a bagel, but we didn’t have any left. She was getting upset asking for a bagel over and over when Agnes came back from the store. She rushed to Agnes, who placated her with some goldfish crackers.
After dinner I gave Eleanor a bath. When we were done, I asked Eleanor to stand up so that I could lift her out of the tub. She continued to play with the water. I asked her to stand up again. She continued to play. I reached in and lifted her up anyway, and started crying from being startled. Later, she was okay with me reading to her and carrying her to her crib for the night, but I still felt on edge.
Maybe it’s not realistic to expect Eleanor to follow instructions when they’re repeated three or four times. Maybe I need to always come over to her, stop her activity, make eye contact, and give her an instruction before I interpret her actions as doing something willfully wrong. It’s hard though. For instance, Eleanor was playing with an electrical cord earlier today. I took it out of her hands as I told her it was dangerous. She laughed and kept on trying to pick it up with a free hand. I ended up needing to hold both her wrists and take the cord out of her hands. She ended up getting a time out for that instance as well. I know that I’m supposed to be setting boundaries for our kids, but it’s just a pain when every confrontation ends up with one of them in tears.
3 words: choose your battles!