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behave yourself
By heather | April 16, 2008
Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.
- William Feather
We’ve been working hard every day to teach Alex “manners”.
Yesterday when he was eating his yogurt, he did the motor mouth – blllttthh – and spit it everywhere, choking on laughter. Luckily, he figured out earlier that same day how to take his shirt off and we were letting him run around like a little redneck baby, so I just had to wipe him down instead of change clothes.
To set a good example, I had to not laugh when what I really wanted to do was take a bite and spit it back.
Last month’s stunt was farting in the tub. We both thought this was hilarious, and I usually managed to say, “What do we say? Excuse me!” before I started laughing.
I stopped laughing when he started trying so hard to make his own jacuzzi that he was regularly pooping in the tub.
Banging silverware on the table. Standing on chairs. Being “gentle” with everything from the cat to the toilet seat.
Manners are boring. Manners are clean. Behaving is not very much fun sometimes. I’d rather hear baby belly laughs.
I know it’s harder to unlearn something that I’ve previously let him do, or ahem, even encouraged by laughing.
It’s just that toddlers are such an ego boost - no one else thinks I’m as funny.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know any better.
I’m a good girl. I hardly ever acted out growing up.
Now that I’m an adult, whatever that means, I get the urge to misbehave more often. I suspect that I’m a likely candidate for a mid-life crisis. In fact, sometimes I sit and plan out how it will go and what I’ll do.
At the very least I’ll quit whatever job I happen to be doing at the time. It’s likely that I’ll burn some bridges on the way out telling people exactly how dumb or what assholes I think they are.
The next thing will be to get myself somewhere I can lay in the sun with no one bugging me, as I am a sun worshiper of the purest sort. True devotees don’t do it to get tan although it’s a nice benefit. It’s because we adore the feeling of rays penetrating all the way to the bones, melting muscles on the way. I don’t get bored, or bothered by sweat. When I describe to my yoga classes in savasana how they should melt into the floor, I picture myself melting on a lounge chair.
I’ll need to save some money so I would definitely cancel services with every company who’s pissed me off regardless of how irresponsible that may be – INSURANCE, CABLE, and PHONE you are numbers 1, 2, and 3.
If we ditch the house, buy a camper, and park it at WalMart we could really save some coin. Plus then I’m only a stone’s throw away from…
Cigarettes and alcohol and junk food! If I’m spending all day laying in the sun anyway it will really be just a matter of which will kill me faster so might as well enjoy it all.
Hopefully I can last until my children are old enough to make their own smart choices and I won’t have to set an example anymore. And maybe Brett will be able to talk me down off the ledge, or maybe he’ll be ready to have his crisis too and we’ll hit every RV park from here to Nashville. (Why Nashville? No idea. How about Vegas?)
What else can I do to misbehave? I’ve always suspected that I’m a bad girl living a good girl’s life but this list certainly doesn’t support that theory. These are way too tame LAME.
While I’m plotting, I guess I’ll keep telling Alex to sit on chairs and eat vegetables. Zzzzz…
Topics: deep thoughts...or not, parenting | 2 Comments »
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April 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I ALWAYS laugh when my son misbehaives. Its horrible and I should stop but sometimes, its funny. LOL
Miss’s last blog post..SPF – Bad
April 30th, 2008 at 10:22 am
[...] It’s because because you look like a fool with your thong hanging out and your tramp stamp flashing if you’re changing a diaper or squatting to get a frying pan out of a cabinet. (I don’t have a tramp stamp BTW. Maybe for my mid-life crisis celebration.) [...]