Cranky McCrankyPants
See this precious one? Oh, but has she been a CRANK lately.
I’m remembering why I always say that the age from 12 months- 24 months is THE most difficult age. She threw a flat out, screaming, FURIOUS fit the other day.
However. I am determined to conquer this defiance NOW rather than later.
With Mary, we met the fits head on at around this age and conquered them. It was a trying several months but after that she was, and continues to be, just a dream.
With Nathan, we let it go. When he was 15 months old- 22 months old we were in the process of selling our house and all the work that that entails, buying a new house and completely renovating it, moving into new house and having a miscarriage. It was a horrible, horrible time. The worst time of my life. And I let things slide discipline-wise with Nathan. It wasn’t his fault and I should have done better. I got in the habit of avoiding things that I knew would make him angry and trying to distract him or appease him when he did throw a fit just because I thought I had other more important, pressing things to do than stop and address his fit. I should have realized that the other things were not as important as training, disciplining and teaching him properly. Somehow I lost focus of what was truly important and oh, how we have paid for it. Not just us, but Nathan too. By the time he was 2yo the pattern of disobedience was set. It was to late to turn things around easily. We have had to work SO hard to turn things around with him. It’s been a hundred times more difficult than it was with Mary. We let his disobedience grow and become ingrained. He developed the habit of defiance. And it has been much, much more difficult to root it out of him. And it’s been hard for him too- it’s been and continues to be such a difficult lesson for him. Last Thanksgiving was the turning point for us and great strides have been made this year. But it’s been very hard work and not something that I wish for Savannah to have to endure needlessly.
So- the work has begun. She MUST learn to obey. It is a cruelty to her to allow her to grow in disobedience, to let it become ingrained in her habits and personality and to then try to root it out once it is deeply entrenched. I cannot allow this to happen to her- she is too precious to me.
*If she is old enough to throw a screaming, furious fit she is old enough to obey cheerfully.
*If she is old enough to look at me in the eye when I tell her “no” and to do it anyway, with that knowing gleam in her eye, she is old enough to obey.
*If she is old enough to be angry because I told her “no”, then she is old enough to understand “no” and to obey “no”.
My goal for her is to be a happy, cheerful, content little girl and I intend to do what I can to help her grow in that area.
Savannah on Sunday, 11/9/08
Here she is this afternoon. She’s pulled Mary’s new coloring book down from the craft table and is inspecting it.
She found a crayon and thinks she might try out this coloring thing like the big kids do.
Clearly, Daddy’s work boots are the perfect place to store crayons. Later on Kip found a whole box full of crayons in his boot.
