Lessons in Discipline

So disciplining a toddler is interesting to say the least. You're basically trying to teach someone whose mind is so taken over by learning words and animals and colors and climbing that there is just no room left to learn appropriate behavior.

Unfortunately for us parental units, there is plenty of room left in our brains for frustration the millionth time a sippy cup gets tossed to the floor or a toy gets thrown in Marti's direction. We don't need to pay for mental hospital bills when the sippy-tossing makes us insane or neurosurgery for the pug's damaged brain, thus discipline must happen.

Discipline with a toddler is not always effective, but we're at least trying not to let our daughter run around like a heathen. This means stern talking-tos and sort-of timeouts.

The other day, Alan and I were hanging out in Avery's room. She was terrorizing Marti, and toys were getting a little too close to the pug for our comfort. So we were redirecting her attention and telling her not to throw.

A note on Marti: She's gotten her tail pulled and gotten bonked by books a time or two, but we've avoided real harm. And she's an equal player. She hassles Avery and steals crackers. She is also more than able to go elsewhere to save herself but most often is right in our faces and right in the path of destruction. I mean, Avery was lying down, kicking her feet the other day and Marti was close enough to the feet that she had to flinch during each kick but refused to move farther away.

But back to our discipline. As Toddzilla Avery is being a menace, Alan is barely able to contain his laughter. Seeing him trying not to laugh only makes me want to laugh, so I was doomed from the beginning. But the hilariously bad behavior necessitated a timeout.

I pull Avery to the side. She's standing in front of her bedroom door. This face is standing in front of the bedroom door.

The stern talking-to goes like this.

Me: Avery. You cannot throw things at Marti. You sit here—[cue my inner monologue: "Crap. She's standing. I don't want her to get sitting and standing confused."]—or stand—until I say you can play. That was not nice. You don't want to hurt Marti. So you just sit here—[ah! I did it again!]—or stand—for a minute.

Cue laughter from the backseat parent, and I just couldn't keep it together. Needless to say, Avery did not exactly have the most difficult 10-second timeout in the world. It's truly so hard to be tough when you're being a moron and the kiddo is just so darn funny.

She's really picking up on the things she shouldn't be doing. It just doesn't stop her from doing them. Hence, she knows how to correctly respond to my seriously stern Mommy voice:





As Avery would say, "Oh boy." It's going to take some practice to be tough when we're up against this sweet little face.

Weapons of Choice

Remember how I told you about Avery's violent streak? We're working on it. She's really not trying to hurt people or pugs, she has just figured out that she can get people and pugs to react to her actions and she thinks it's the funniest thing ever.

The kitchen drawers I have refused to baby-proof are the ones that hold utensils. I don't use all of the utensils all the time, but I like having access to them should I choose to go all Betty Crocker. (It could happen.)

But Avery is using the utensils as pug-chasing weapons.

First, a strainer. On a scale of I to V(iolent), it ranks low.


Once I took that away, she opted for a spatula, the better to scoop Marti up. How cute.


Then? Well, then she really went for it.


I hope she's still interested in it in a few years when I want her to help me tenderize some non-Marti meat.

Some Days, Some Weeks

In the parenting world, some days and weeks are more challenging than others. Tuesday, my first day "back to work" as a solo full-time toddler caregiver was one of those days I wanted to crawl in bed at 5 pm.


On Tuesday, after having two weeks of Alan off work and extended family around, I was back on my own. Avery grabbed a bag of tortilla chips off the kitchen table—by the wrong end—dumping the entire contents. She thought she struck it rich, Marti scrambled to get some and I had to corral both of the under-3-foot terrors, Marti outside and Aves in her playpen.

That day, Avery discovered the reaction-getting fun that is hitting, pinching and head-butting. Then she opened the warming drawer on the oven and smashed my foot. Then a plate shattered while Avery was barefoot and hungry and dinner was on the stove. This was after an entire day of running after the Tasmanian Devil with ADD that Avery now is. It was one of those days you want to do a Zack Morris-style timeout and stop everyone but you in their tracks.

Desperate for a minute to unload the dishwasher, I encouraged her to chase Marti with her dino, a la this:



Poor Marti.

On Wednesday, Avery added biting into her bag of tricks. Hilarious too, she thinks. We have this heavy-duty musical stacker and after trying to slap me, she grabbed it like a bat and looked at Marti. Like, "What will happen if I bash Marti over the head with this?" Luckily for Marti's small head, I stopped this train of thought in its tracks.

None of this madness is helped by the fact that my pelvis feels like it's breaking in half and my stomach is making putting on my shoes a chore. Thank goodness for the thumps and bumps that remind me that a real person is in there.


All of that's not to say that Avery isn't just the cutest thing in the world. We're finally getting back into the groove today. Her vocab is exploding and I can't even keep up with a list. Despite her violent streak, she's learning manners and now says thank you when she gives or receives anything. She says a version of "airplane," "da-dat" is very specific to cat and anything round or clock-like is a clock, without the L. Her "eye bow" discovery is really cute when it doesn't turn into her pinching your eye lid or gouging your eye out. She's also started climbing up and down stairs on two feet, although she thinks she's way better than she really is. Gotta love confidence in a kiddo.



First haircut was Wednesday and she was a champ. Not her favorite life experience but it was over pretty quickly and she only cried a bit. It wasn't nearly as traumatizing as the pictures make it seem. I was sad to see those baby locks go, but the time had come to get rid of her "party in the front, party in the back" baby mullet. She looks like such a big girl now, and now it can all come in evenly instead of scraggly city.


These are the weeks when I don't know how it will be adding number two into our world. These are the weeks that scare me. But then Avery will practice her "I I ooh" (I love you), Alan shows up home an hour early and Avery runs back and forth between us at bedtime giving out drooly open-mouthed kisses and I remember why we're doing it all again.