"Son, if you want to mow that badly, we can make it happen..."

I’m not even going to comment on how long it’s been since I’ve posted to my blog. In fact, forget that you read that first sentence. Instead, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that I discovered recently…I have no idea how to parent. Not the providing food and shelter and love part or the spending an hour passing a ball back and forth part or even the changing dirty, steaming diapers part. No, my parenting weakness lies in the making him a well-mannered citizen of the world part. So, no biggie, right?

This realization was brought about by my son’s first real tantrum. I thought that I had at least 8 more months until the terrible twos, but if Suttie was going to pick anything to be precocious about, it was this. When he turned a year old, my mom got him a toy lawnmower, but since he wasn’t quite walking yet, we stored it until he got some balance. Now that he’s vertical, I decided that we’d give it a go. Luckily, he loved it! In fact, he loved it so much that he would freak out if I tried to touch it or play with it in anyway. At one point, he got it stuck in a corner, so I reached in to help. And this is where things went south. As I wheeled the mower around, Suttie sank to his knees, in full sob, and fell forward onto his face (on purpose). Then he started kicking his feet and screaming. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but, if there’s one thing that I do know about disciplining a child, it’s to not laugh.

So, I’m looking at my 14-month old son, who is now in a full hysterical fit, trying to decide what to do. I’ve tried mild spanks before – more like what I would call love taps – and he either just looks at me or giggles. Plus, at this age, I don’t think he has the ability to connect the misdeed with the spank. Instead, I decided to go with a good old-fashioned time out. I placed him in his toddler seat, held him there so that he’d stay, and said in a firm, loud voice, “You are in time out.” I’d like to say that he stopped crying, totally understood the situation, and learned a valuable lesson. But he actually wailed louder, tried to hit me in the face, and at the end of it, he still didn’t want me touching that mower.

And now it’s clear to me that I have no clue how to teach him right from wrong. Of course, I’ll try…..and fail….and try again, and in the mean time, I’ve c onstructed a Plan B that involves watching a whole lot of Sprout.