Raising a Heathen, Revisited

It being a "disorganized and running late" sort of day earlier this week, I was a little lax in my cuss-word-restraint. Ari brought this to my attention in two instances:

At Target...as I pushed the cart into the store, Ari bumped his head against the side when we wheeled over the bump at the threshold. "Oh shit, shit, shit. Oh shit. Shit." He proclaimed to whomever would listen. In my attempts to ignore, and not laugh at, his outburst, I probably did not provide enough attention to the much celebrated ouchie. Which is possibly why he tacked on that last "shit".

At the grocery store...again, a cart incident. Trying to maneuver the gigantic grocery-cart-with-kiddie-car-on-front (if you don't have small children you probably have no idea what I'm talking about) through the freezer aisle, I got hung up on a freezer door (don't ask). "Son of a bitch," I mutter as I struggle to free the cart. Ari, all the way in the kiddie car on the front of the cart, cheerfully calls out, "Son of a bitch!" Sharp ears on that one.

And a couple more anecdotes from a precocious two-year-old...

Two Mondays ago, I was having a rough mothering day. Everything seemed to be going wrong. I caught Ally's skin in a buckle. Ari kicked her swing as I was pulling her out and she bumped her head. He flew a wooden toy airplane into her head, on purpose. Ari and I were butting heads on almost everything. By lunchtime I was pulling my hair out and decided to throw caution to the wind, build a blanket fort on the patio and have some dinosaur sandwiches inside it...thinking that "fun mommy" would save the day. Um, no. It began with Ally starting to fuss because it was getting pretty hot in the fort (she hates to be hot). Then Ari refused to sit still and eat more than a bit of his dino sandwich. After some supreme frustration, I held it for him so he could take a bite. Whoops, bad precedent. He wanted me to hold it for the next bite, then the next. I refused and said, "I can't do that, Ari, you can use your hands." He threw my parent psychobabble back in my face with, "You can do it, Mommy!" with as much enthusiasm and encouragement as he could muster. I sat there as stoically as I could before cracking a smile (one can only hold back so much) and picking up the sandwich. He took a bite, grinned at me and blessed me with, "You did it, Mommy!"

Two minutes later, Ally was in a full-fledged tantrum because of the heat so I took her inside, followed by Ari, and tucked her into her infant seat then went back to the patio to clean up. I hear the sliding glass door slide shut behind me. And then..."click". Damnit. I knew it was a bad thing when Ari learned how to work the door locks. You see, our patio is enclosed by a six-foot wall and picky shrubs. Slowly, I stood up, turned around and walked to the door. "Ari, you will unlock this door now." He smirks at me. The little shite smirked at me. And walked away. What the f...when I get my hands on him... What to do? Baby inside with insidious toddler. Am stuck on patio. Please, God, help.

Ah, inspiration! I decided to work on my tan. I laid down in the middle of the patio and pulled my shirt up over my head. And waited. Sure enough, through the glass I hear, "Mommy, what you doing? Mommy? Mommy?" And then, a click and a whoosh as the door opens. Slowly I get up, walk to the door and sit down in front of him to give him the 411 on why we don't lock Mommy out of the house. As I begin my speech, he interrupts with, "But Mommy, I was being patient!" As in "I was being patient while I waited for you to be able to come back into the house." Since we've been working on "being patient" lately, I wasn't sure if he was genuinely learning a lesson here or if he was snowballing me. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Sometimes it's very funny in our house and sometimes it's very tiring. Usually it's both at the same time.