Shove Me, Shove Me

We're at two years and two months now, and let's see...what's going on in life? My kid's personality has bloomed and grown. Half the time, she's a little blue-eyed angel with a softly glowing halo surrounding her strawberry blonde curls. The other half, she's a crazy shitmonster.

School continues to be interesting. Currently she goes twice a week, from 1:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon. Any parent of a kid older than one who's reading this post understands why that is totally crazy. As her naptime gets pushed later and later, she's less and less happy about being woken up to go to school. Nevertheless, to school we must go, and by the time she gets there she's pretty happy. That is, until one of the other children looks at her and decides to let out a little anger.

So, yeah. Scott and I are pretty mellow, and we gave birth to a mellow, pacifistic daughter. Sadie does not like fights. She doesn't like people being angry, period. When you scold her for doing something wrong, her response is to yell "HUG, HUG, HUG" at the top of her lungs and launch herself at you until she's sure that you're too overwhelmed by cuteness to hold a grudge. I love this very much about her, and it's something I treasure and want to encourage and nurture.

Okay, that said? Her peace-loving nature makes her a natural target on the schoolyard, and it's already starting to manifest itself in ways that are going to make life tough for her. Other kids in class have learned that if they want a toy that Sadie's holding, she's not going to fight back. She gets stuff snatched out of her hands routinely; if another kid stakes a claim to something wants, she'll wring her hands and look distressed, but it won't go beyond that. Today, she picked up a bracelet and began to play with it, not realizing that another girl had already claimed that as "hers" (Toddler Rule #17: If I played with it within the last 20 minutes, it's mine). The girl protested, and Sadie jumped and literally hurled the bracelet back in the girl's direction, then scurried off to go squash some play-doh inside a garlic press.

Upside? I secretly suspect the moms in my class are jealous of her good manners. "Oh, how cute," they sigh when she accepts a green plastic necklace from another kid with a heartfelt "THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR THE BEADS." (By the way, she speaks in all-caps now.)

The downside? Well, we've been learning that over the past few weeks. It started with a girl in class who pushed Sadie...just once...just to see what would happen. What happened is that Sadie's lip trembled and she wandered away to complain to the air. After that, it was like open season on the shy kid. She's been pushed a number of times, and when one kid is yelled at and taken away, another comes to take their place.

Last week, I had a gnarly cold, so Scott took her to school. When he came home, he reported that Lady Pushalot had been picking on Sadie, and had received a stern talking to from a teacher. When I brought her in today, I noticed a difference in Sadie's behavior. She walked in hesitantly, looking around constantly. As luck would have it, two boys came barreling up right as we walked in, pushing and shoving each other cheerfully. Her response was to step back in alarm, eyes open wide, hugging her own body. It took her several more minutes to gather up the courage to step into the classroom and make her way to a safe toy.

Watching her make her way ever so cautiously around the room, I found myself thinking about our dog, King. King is ten years old and weighs a whopping eight pounds. He is the size of a very small cat. When he hasn't been groomed recently, he's so short that his stomach fur brushes the ground. When King goes to the dog park, he's surrounded by dogs who weigh literally ten to fifteen times as much as he does.

And yet.

At the dog park, nobody messes with King. He goes about his business, peeing on rocks and whatnot, and if other dogs sniff him he'll respond with a friendly sniff of his own. But if they get too friendly, he's not afraid to give a sharp little snarl -- just something that says, "Dude. STEP OFF." And then they do, and everybody's happy.

So when I watch my daughter in class, I find myself thinking about King, and wishing he could speak Human so he could give my daughter a few valuable classes about standing up for yourself. "Hey -- bald dog. If they get too close and you don't like it, LET THEM KNOW. Don't be afraid. We peaceful little guys have to stand up for ourselves in this crazy, 'roided out world."

But he can't do that, and I can't order her to stand up for herself. So when one of those brawling boys -- let's call him McShovin -- came up to her on the playground today and joyfully pushed her to the ground, causing her to burst into hysterical tears, I felt trapped and hamstrung. I went over to hug her, aware of the temporary hush that had fallen over the yard, but for once I had no idea what to say to make it better. I just kind of stood there, awkward, as a teacher took the offender aside and sternly told him that hitting wasn't okay, that she was going to stop him from doing it.

As she did so, another of Sadie's teachers came up to me. "I want you to tell McShovin that it's not okay to hit Sadie," she said.

"You... want me to tell him?"

"Yes."

She led me and Sadie, still hiccuping with tears, back over to McShovin. He was standing there with the other teacher, looking at Sadie with mild curiosity.

"McShovin, Sadie's mommy has something to say to you."

He didn't want to hear it, and he turned away, but the teacher brought him back to us. His mother was sitting twenty feet away, engaged in conversation with other moms, and I wasn't sure if she could overhear our conversation, but what I did know was at that moment I was being stared at by two teachers and a wide-eyed little boy. Most importantly, my own daughter stood there in silence, looking at her accuser, waiting to see what I would say. And that's why I took a deep breath, looked this kid in the eyes, and said loudly enough for everyone on the schoolyard to hear me:

"McShovin, DON'T. PUSH. SADIE."

Well. I can't say for whom it was more cathartic -- Sadie, McShovin, or me, a thirty-three year old woman who spent more years than she cares to remember getting picked on, taunted and just plain overrun by schoolyard bullies who were always far too intimidating to talk back to. Will it change anything? I hope so, but I'm not sure. If there's one lesson we soon learn as kids, is that relying on your parents to fight your battles only works for a very finite amount of time. But it felt good to do it. And it felt good when, later on, we rode home in the car and I said, "Do you remember when McShovin pushed you today?" and she replied, "IT'S NOT OKAY."

King would be proud.

A Million Little High-Fives

The hitting phase seems to have passed...at least for now. The lesson we've been teaching her is that hitting animals and people isn't okay, but that when she feels the need to whack something (don't we all?) there are other things she can hit instead: the floor, the couch, or even our hands. Now I could just get her to stop throwing sand...oh well.

Scott left yesterday for a three week business trip. We were both feeling sad and trying to hide it as we spent the day at his mother's house for Easter brunch and my parents' for dinner, since it's right near the airport. Scott's afraid he's going to miss something momentous in Sadie's development, and while I don't think he has to be afraid that she's suddenly going to discover a love of the high jump, she is changing so much from one day to the next that three weeks from now, who knows who she'll be?

It's a Hit

She's into hitting these days.

Remember when I said last time that she'd turned into an angel? Yeah, not so much. Lately she's been delighting in pushing my buttons, and that includes taking whacks at my face and chest because nothing gets my attention faster.

I can always tell when it's going to happen. In Scenario #1, I pick her up against her will, either because it's time to do something else or because she's misbehaving. She gets angry, and hits my chest as hard as she can. In Scenario #2, I lean in to give her a kiss or otherwise provide her access to my face, she gets a mischievous glint in her eye, and the next thing you know she's bonked me in the nose.

In the words of Tina Fey, I will not have that shit. So we've implemented the Time Out Chair.

The Time Out Chair is the saddest thing you've ever seen.

Isn't that sad? It's sandwiched between the china cabinet and the computer desk, possibly the most boring spot in the whole house. Friday was the first day I had to use the Time Out Chair for hitting. I put her into it and set the Timer App on my phone to beep in 90 seconds.

She didn't like the chair, but funnily enough, what really freaked her out was the sound of the timer going off. She wanted to tell us about the "noise" for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday, I had to use Time Out again. This time she was throwing her pasta on the ground so the dogs could eat it, and repeated warnings only made her throw it more enthusiastically. This time she knew what was coming, and whined the entire time she was in the chair. "Up peese," "Mommy," "Daddy," "Hug," anything she could think of. THIS KID IS EIGHTEEN MONTHS OLD. I can only imagine the psychological torture she is going to inflict upon us when she gets old enough to slam her bedroom door.

You know what, though? I think it's working. Today when I came home I picked her up. She hugged me, and when I asked her for a kiss, I saw that glint in her eye as she wound-up for the pitch. She literally stopped herself mid swing. "Good girl," I told her. And later she made up for it by biting her cookie into a crescent shape, showing it to me, and proudly saying, "Moon."