could someone please come explain this to my three and a half year old? because what i am saying isn't working.
my child is rude. and no, not in the i-am-shy-so-i-refuse-to-speak kind of way. rude as in when someone says hello, he screams and covers his face. when someone asks him a question, he yells no. he doesn't act that way with everyone. but he acts that way to my grandmother. and today to my former co-workers who were being especially kind to him despite his bad attitude. it embarrasses me. it makes me anxious. and it turns me into the kind of mother i don't want to be; the kind who makes excuses for his behavior. oh, he's hungry. he fell asleep in the car. he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. he's three-and-a-half (complete with a knowing glance). i find myself trying to predict when these outbursts might happen, so that i can preface it with a serious conversation with him about my expectations for his behavior. by the way, it. doesn't. work.
i can handle sassy. i can handle an occasional tantrum. i often find them funny, like the other day when he yelled from time-out that his daddy and i weren't "cool" and that he was going to find new parents in georgia. but rude? i can't handle that.
time-out doesn't seem to work. he could care less about the elf-on-the-shelf, three strikes, losing privileges.
part of me wants someone to tell me this is normal. but the other part of me doesn't want to accept this behavior as normal because it upsets me so. do i need advice? sure. do i need to commiserate? you bet. do i just need to vent? probably.
my sister-in-law once told me that all of the "half" years were difficult for them and that holds true for our family also. two-and-a-half made me want to run away to mexico. and so far, three-and-a-half isn't far behind.
he is the true love of my life, i swear. sometimes i just need to take a breath and remember that.
