Temper, Temper

I took my mother and son out on a shopping jaunt yesterday. Nothing dramatic, just a quick trip through the grocery store for some staple items. However, we made the mistake of taking my son out directly after his nap.

About five minutes into the store, my son started to fuss, and the fussing progressed into a full-blown, teary tantrum. Ordinarily, I would have my husband take my son to calm down while I finished, but with my mother in tow, and just a few things on my list, I pushed on despite the theatrics. My son wanted to run around the store, and, as any parent knows who has been in a busy store, particularly one on re-stock day, it wasn't about to happen.

As I've mentioned before, my mom and I differ in parenting styles. My mother is much more indulgent. Case in point: I told her to watch my son for a second while I grabbed a piece of ham from the meat section, and I turn around to see her taking my son over to a rack of toys. I motored my way over as fast as I could before she could even touch one of those toys.

"If you give him the toy now, he'll think that throwing a tantrum will get him rewarded in some way," I calmly stated, turning the cart, and my wailing child, back toward the household items. I wanted to shout, "Oh my God, you flipping saboteur! Have you lost what little mind you have left in the graying meat-case you call a head?", but I didn't. Probably a good thing. Probably.

"I told him that he could have it," she replied. I walked on, but re-stated that we needed to send my son the message that throwing a tantrum doesn't yield whatever he wants. After he settled down, we gave him his afternoon snack, and that seemed to restore his sense of balance.

We were on our way out of the store when there was a piercing shriek from outside. A woman, somewhere between my age and my mother's, was struggling with a girl who was probably about six or seven. It turned out that the girl wanted to ride in a cab on the way home, and her mother said "no". The girl was shrieking as loud as she could, not because she was in any danger, but because she wanted to attract attention. Every time she let loose, she would glance around to see who was staring. It was a power play with even odds on who would win.

I felt for the woman. I think most people did, really. She kept saying she didn't have the money for the cab (something I can well understand given the rising cost of food), and her daughter kept screaming louder with every refusal. She was still screaming by the time we had finished loading the car and were getting in to leave.

I looked over the car to my mother and, pointing to the shenanigans, said, "And that's what happens when a child gets their way from a screaming match."

Loss of Independent Sleeping

Our family is preparing for a big change. In approximately four weeks, I will be leaving the work force. At the same time, we will be moving from our current home into my family's home in horse country. 

My mother is beginning to struggle to care for my grandmother. If they're both honest, they have always gotten on each others' nerves, but with my grandmother's failing hearing, my mother is more on edge than before.

In addition to trying to combine two households into one, we're also preparing my son for the move. Right now, we all have our own bedrooms. When we first move in, we will share a bedroom until I can re-convert my old bedroom from a library. There appears to be little peer reviewed literature on the subject of sharing a room, but not a bed. Co-sleeping is one of those issues with strong support for every side of the decision whether or not to share a bed with your baby or young child. Personally, I don't want to open that can of worms. There has been much said already, and it isn't the issue at hand.


As an infant, I slept either in the cradle in my parents' room (it was a big-butt cradle) or in the crib in the nursery. After my father left and I had outgrown my crib, I had to share a bed with my mother for a while until the bedrooms in the attic could be updated. It never struck me as odd that I didn't have my own room, even when I went to friends' homes and played in their (typically) well-appointed bedrooms.

I don't worry so much about the effect sharing a room will have on my son's sense of independence as I do about the effect my snoring will have on his quality of sleep. That's right - I have smaller than normal nasal passages, so I'm a noisy sleeper. In fact, with my current sinus infection, my husband describes me as sounding like a diesel truck. (Have I mentioned how much I love him?) 

Beyond that, I worry about what effect sharing a room will have on the dynamic between myself and my husband. We do most of our talking in bed before going to sleep. We unwind in bed with our laptops, even though we know experts (ahh, those darn experts) say that the bedroom should be used for sleep only. Well, sleep and a limited number of extracurricular activities. If my son continues to go to bed at 7:30, though, I think the list of activities in the bedroom will be quite limited.

The Storm is Brewing

Soon, I will have to turn in my resignation to The Powers That Be. I have decided that five years, just a measly five years, in tech support has sufficiently soured me on life that I need to spend some time looking for the good in people again.

I also decided that I need to focus more time on son. He was recently diagnosed with a speech delay, and while children all over with speech delay improve with moms who work outside the home, I feel that I need to be home to work on our relationship. There is a closeness between my son and my husband, and between my son and my mother, that we don't share. When things go wrong, or if something upsets him, my son will go to my husband or my mother before coming to me. He doesn't respect my authority as a parent, either, which scares me when I need to take him somewhere alone.

I know this invites criticism of my skills as a parent, and I'd be the first person to say that I need some help in that area. Hence the desire to become a SAHM. I freely admit that I put the majority of my time and energy into so many things outside the home that I have become the person who realizes it came at the sacrifice of their home life. I guess you could say that it is fortunate that I have come to this realization early enough in my son's life that any permanent damage can be mitigated.

I Can't Believe I Said That

Liam fell off the chair we have on the front porch for him to sit and wave goodbye to Mamere. He's ok, just a goose-egg and a new found respect for staying off things.

I, on the other hand, I was so startled I turned into my mother circa 1996 - "I have had enough of this shit!"

My son was too far into his Toddler Tears to care, but my husband looked sick. As though I might fully morph into my sixty-odd years-old mother and never come back.

Is it wrong that it gave me ideas about how to scare him next time he doesn't want to get up with our son? Give granny some sugar, baby!


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