NO!

“No! Mommy!” and “No, Mommy!” have become very regular phrases in our household. But they are driving me bat-crap crazy, as I mentioned in my last post. Accompanied with aggression towards Daddy and it is the biggest headache, EVER. Although, I have been reassured that this is very normal for a two year old, it didn’t ease my concern at all.

It all started when our Buzz kitty died.  Right after, Otter started screaming and pushing away Doc when he’d get home from work. Of course, after a long day, this hurt his feelings.  Otter just wanted me and me only (C’mon, kid! Can’t you see I’m cooking?!). After doing some reading online Doc explained that is normal and that the burden is on me to redirect Otter to show affection to his Daddy, again. So, I would show more affection to Doc and encourage Otter to do the same.  I’d have talks with Otter to explain to him how awesome Daddy is and that he can help him do anything that I can do, too. But, I think the biggest thing to redirect Otter was several events or evenings alone with Doc. He’s doing much better, now.  When Doc gets home he’ll occasionally shy away or try to push his daddy away but he is much more willing to go play with him while I cook dinner rather than attaching himself to me. But we are still working on the telling us “no” part.

This, to me, is humiliating. Normal but humiliating. There is nothing are few things worse than standing in the middle of Target and asking your child to stand up or stay with mommy and have him shout “No!” back at you. I can just feel the stares of disapproving strangers who think he’s probably nothing more than a snot-nosed brat who gets away with misbehaving (and there’s me who’s thinking “Are you kidding me, Kid?”). Not true. My little boy is sweet and caring. He just so happens to be testing his language and boundaries.  After fighting my initial urge of yelling, “NO! Don’t use that word with Mommy” I calmly get on his level, repeat my request and help him follow through. Let’s face it, telling a toddler “no” to get him to stop saying “no” really isn’t going to help things and it’s probably going to confuse it.  Sure, this tactic doesn’t always work and I often find myself wanting to wallow around on the floor with him, crying, because neither of us are understanding each other in that moment, but I pick us both up and head out of the store.

I know this is going to continue being an uphill battle.  What will probably happen is we will head out for the holidays with a nice, sweet boy who doesn’t use the naughty “no” and once we reach the grandparent’s houses “no” will appear again in the vocabulary, making us both look like wretched parents. But we love him!

Anways, we went and saw Santa and Mrs. Clause. Otter was pretty excited and even pulled me by the hand to go see them.  Now that I think of it, I don’t think Otter asked for anything. It’s a good thing we can tell Chip, our Elf on the Shelf, what he’d like for Christmas!