Robert's daycare teachers included sent home a terrific article this week for us to read. James and I both enjoyed it. I think it is great - even if there are no toddlers in your house!
Seeing the Toddler in Myself by Beth Teitell
There's one thing everyone knows about 2-year-olds: They often behave -- sorry, but there's no nice way to say this -- like 2-year-olds. The irrationality, the wild mood swings, the pitched battles for independence. If you didn't know better, you'd swear they were going through puberty.
And actually, they are -- except it's two-berty, and instead of pimples or belly-ring infections they've got diaper rash.
None of the books I read on parenting remotely prepared me for the challenges that lurked in the zone where BabyGap meets Toddler Gap. In the thick of things, I quickly learned that anything is grounds for a tantrum: a sandwich being cut into triangles rather than rectangles; being pushed from behind while swinging at the park when a frontal push was preferred (though not mentioned); receiving a kiss.
Of course, if you're a Good Parent, you meet your child's unreasonable demands calmly yet firmly, with a mature measure of remove. You explain, for example, that shape has no influence on how a sandiwch tastes, tell a distracting story, make the sandwich do a silly dance, and voila! Lunch is back on track. What you don't do is throw a tantrum yourself.
But, like most things in life, that's easier said than done, particularly if you've got your own stress going on, as I did the other day. I had an important business lunch looming, and I absolutely needed a cream-colored cashmere turtleneck to complete my outfit. I'd gotten a tip that such a sweater existed at Saks, and with both my sons engaged in a new Playmobile space station, I sneaked away to track down the sweater. I was on the phone with a saleswoman, describing the exact shade of off-white I wanted, when my 2- and 4-year-old boys burst in, brawling over a couple of toy astronaut helmets that appeared (to the parental eye) to be identical. Okay, maybe one was a little brighter white than the other. Somehow, that one had become the prized helmet. "I want it!" my younger son yelled as my older one raced around the room clutching his treasure. "No!" he yelled back. "It's mine."
Jeez, I thought, baffled, why do they get so hung up on small details? "Boys!" I snapped, covering the phone. "What difference does the color make?" Having made my point about the absurdity of fighting over hue, I returned to my call. "Would you say the sweater's definitely a cream?" I asked. "Because I don't want white-white."
I think the saleswoman started to assure me that the garment in stock wasn't "white-white," but I was no longer listening to her. I was thinking about what I'd just said, and how similar I sounded to a couple of people I knew. Very short people.
And right then, on the phone with a department store, was when I had one of my biggest motherhood epiphanies to date. And it was this: Everything I Needed to Know About Understanding My Kids I Learned from Saks.
I finally comprehended, on a gut level -- not on some fake patient-mother level -- why the stakes are always so high for my kids. Why shouldn't they care -- and be willing to fight to the death over -- which helmet their astronaut wears? I would do the same (if astronauts were my thing, I mean).
Why should I be allowed to demand specific items but expect them to settle for something that's merely in the range of their hearts' desire? And not only settle, but be good sports about it?
They, after all, are the two-bescent ones in this picture. What's my excuse? I thought about all the times I'd been baffled when they refused maple vanilla yogurt, insisting on French vanilla, and the tears over a scarcity of red Legos. "The blue ones are just as nice, " I'd said. "The maple vanilla tastes just the same."
But that was the pre-cashmere-revelation me. Now that I've recognized myself in them (or is it them in me?), I've got more sympathy for how important a seemingly small difference can be. Which is to say that tonight I'll be on the Internet, searching for a bright-white astronaut helmet. And, yes, tomorrow I'll be at Saks, checking out the sweater in person.
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