Of all the advice I got when I was pregnant, or even while Haeden was just a wee babe, nobody ever told me that he would turn into a teenage hellion at the age of two.
Everybody knows about the "terrible two's", sure. But when I heard that I always envisioned tantrums - flailing arms, kicking legs, bodies being thrown to the floor in the most dramatic way possible. These were things I was prepared for - you know, the face slaps and kicks to the gut while trying to remove him from something dangerous, or even something he just plain can't have. I can handle those.
But the back talk? Nobody warned me about this part. How can a kid that only learned to talk 6 months ago have that down to a damn science? Lately, conversations with him go a little like this:
Me: Haeden, stop touching the TV.
Haeden: NO!
Me: Haeden, stop touching the TV and don't tell me no.
Haeden: No, Mommy! YOU stop!
And it wouldn't be all that bad if he'd actually stopped and then given me sass, but it's both. I know that being the battle ax all the time is the wrong approach, but it's so incredibly hard not to be at this time. Especially if we are out in public. I don't want to be the woman with the rowdy, obnoxious kid, but I also don't want to be confined to the house all the time either.
When we're at home I simply put him in time out and that is definitely helpful. But when we're out and about I am kind of at a loss. I try to distract him and I have even tried to bribe him a few times... "If you are a good boy, Mommy will let you have a cookie..." kind of thing. That sometimes works, but if he's already in a mood there seems to be no talking him down from the ledge, if you know what I mean.
The other day he was acting out in a restaurant. We tried everything we could think of to keep him happy, but he was being loud and telling us both "NO! Mommy/ Daddy bad!" and throwing things off the table. I finally told him that if he didn't stop then I was going to take him to the car for a spanking. And that's exactly what ended up happening. Of course, he can barely feel anything since he is still in diapers, but it definitely gets the message across to him. Afterwards, I asked if he knew why he got a spanking and he did. He told me what he was doing wrong and then I asked if he would be a good boy when we went back inside. And he told me no several times. Finally, after telling him that we wouldn't go back inside and eat until he agreed to be good, he said he would and he was for the most part. I mean, he's two, after all. Good is sort of a relative thing, right?
